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The Return of the Lord 


What the New Testament teaches about the 

second coming of Christ. An examination of 

the leading passages in the New Testament 
dealing with His return. 





By 
ARNO CLEMENS GAEBELEIN 
Editor of “Our Hope” 


PuBLICATION OrFice “Our Hope” 


456 FourtH AVENUE 
New York, N. Y. 


And All Booksellers 


? 


yf Copyright 1925 , ‘ | 


t 





CONTENTS 
Chapter 1. The Tord Soeur an iio ae Cae wate 
Chapter II. The Return of the Lord in the Gospels.. 
Chapter III]. The Return of the Lord in the Acts.... 


Chapter IV. The Return of the Lord in the Pauline 
PEDISUICR Tene rie ate pou? Cictahael cai eee ee ceases Moai ee, ay 


Chapter V. The Return of the Lord in the General 
BO VCORE A BAO fo GS se A ANERL CUPL OMIM AR TD 


Ghenter VI. The Return of the Lord in the Book of 


PP EUBLATIOTINS Hae Col Lia gaye Ot seg eri nti Ra Te, ate 


Chapter VII. Twenty Prominent Facts Taught in 
the New Testament on the Return of the Lord... 


Chapter VIII. Fifty Prophecies of the Old Testament 
Which Can only be Fulfilled when the Lord Returns 


42 


47 


85 


94 


111 


119 


CN) a 
ad 





CHAPTER I 
THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


Almost nineteen hundred years ago there stood on a moun- 
tain slope near Jerusalem a group of men. In their midst 
stood One whom they had followed as their Master and Lord. 
For many months they had listened to the words of life, which 
came from His lips, and witnessed the miracles of divine 
power and mercy, which were wrought by Him in every sec- 
tion of Israel’s land. The eyes of the blind were opened 
instantaneously; the paralytics walked; the dumb spake; the 
deaf heard. Many cursed with leprosy were cleansed by His 
commanding power. Three times death had to release its 
prey. A young girl and a young man, after physical death 
had claimed them, were restored to life. They had seen a 
greater miracle than the one at Nain’s gate, when He had 
stopped a funeral and turned weeping into laughter of joy. 
One of His friends had been four days in the grave. He 
spoke the word and the dead arose. Thousands had been fed 
by Him also in a miraculous way. ‘The wind and the waves 
obeyed His word. 

Three of their number had seen Him in a startling trans- 
figuration. ‘They heard a supernatural voice, which declared 
Him to be the Son of God. ‘They all knew that their Master 
and ‘Teacher is the promised |Messiah, the Son of David. 
What Peter voiced,““Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living 
God” was the deep conviction of each heart. 

Then came the seeming tragedy. What He had predicted 
came to pass. ‘They delivered Him into the hands of the 
Gentiles. He was unjustly condemned. They nailed Him 
to the cross, where He died. Hewas buried. He arose from 
among the dead on the third day. After that He showed 
Himself alive by many infallible proofs, He appeared in 

5 


6 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


their meeting room, passing through closed doors. He 
walked with them and talked with them. He ate in their 
presence. Once more they are together. It is a farewell 
meeting. For the last time they look into His face; for the 
last time they hear His words; for the last time He gives them 
command and promise. ‘Then all at once He extended His 
hands in blessing, the hands where they still beheld the marks 
of His erstwhile passion. 

As Elisha, when he followed Elijah, his master, knew that 
something was about to happen, that Elijah would leave him 
without knowing the manner of his departure, so these dis- 
ciples knew that their Lord would be taken from them, yet 
they knew not how He would leave them. ‘They must have 
remembered His words, “I came forth from the Father, and 
am come into the world; again I leave the world, and go to the 
Father? (John xvi:28). They knew the hour had come when 
they were to be orphaned. 

‘“‘And it came to pass, while He blessed them, He was 
parted from them, and carried up into heaven” (Luke xxiv: 
51). ‘And when He had spoken these words, while they 
beheld, He was taken up, and a' cloud received Him out of 
their sight” (Acts i:9). His feet, which, for thirty three years 
had walked the earth, the creation of His hands, left the 
ground, and gradually He is lifted into space. For a brief 
moment they beheld Him carried upward, when a cloud 
received Him and He vanished from their sight. The last 
vision they had of their beloved Lord was in the cloud, which 
took Him to His eternal dwelling place. And that cloud was 
not a cloud of vapour. The clouds of the sky are but “‘the 
dust of His feet”? (Nahum i:3). The cloud which received 
Him was the shining garment of glory, the Shekinah, with 
which, in olden times, He had manifested Himself in the 
midst of His people Israel; the glory which prophets had seen 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 7 


in pre-incarnation days. What He had foretold had come 
to pass; He had died; He had been raised from the dead; and 
now He returned to the Father. 
‘And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He 
went up, behold two men stood by them in white apparel, 
which also said, ““Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up 
into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you 
into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him 
go into heaven” (Acts 1:10-11). They could not take their 
eyes off the spot where they had seen Him disappear. 
Their eyes were fixed on the heavens. And then they listened 
to the message of His coming again from the same heavens, 
in like manner. They were familiar with this promise, for 
He had often spoken to them about His return, when they 
would see Him once more. They left the ascension mount 
filled with a joyous hope and glorious anticipation. Their 
physical attitude as they had looked steadfastly toward 
heaven became the spiritual attitude of the Church, born on 
the day when the Holy Spirit came down to earth. The 
Lord Jesus Christ was the all absorbing object before the 
heart of the early Church. Many of the believers had known 
Him in His life of humiliation, and the thousands of converts 
who believed on His name and were added to the body of 
Christ, who had never seen Him, heard from the lips of the 
disciples of His loveliness and graciousness. To see Him in 
His glory must have been the highest wish of the early 
Christians. Of them Peter wrote, ‘‘Whom having not seen, 
ye love, in whom, though ye now see Him not, yet believing, 
ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Peter i:8). 
The Apostle’s doctrine included as a prominent truth of 
Christianity the blessed hope of His return. It was taught 
the young converts from paganism that Christ will return, 
and will become King over all the earth. When the Holy 


8 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


Spirit unfolded the full truth as to redemption, and the 
Church of Christ, His body and His bride, the blessed hope 
was revealed as the great consummating event of the redemp- 
tion plan of God. As we show in the examination of the many 
Scripture passages in this volume, if the hope of His return 
is given up, it means more than an incomplete and mutilated 
Gospel; it means the collapse of true Christian doctrine. 

Research in patristic literature, the writings of the Ante- 
Nicene fathers, has shown that for at least 300 years the 
Church universal believed in and hoped for, the coming of 
the Lord. They waited for the coming of the Bridegroom. 
But what the Lord had indicated in His parable of the ten 
virgins (Matt. xxv) came to pass: “While the Bridegroom 
tarried, they all slumbered and slept.” The immediate 
coming of the Lord was no longer expected, and as the pro- 
fessing Church became corrupted by false doctrines and 
priestly assumption, the blessed hope was entirely forgotten. 
Occasionally during the centuries which followed an alarm 
was raised that the great judgment day was soontocome. It 
was so in the beginning of the seventh century and more so” 
when the year 1000 A. D. had come. Then it was universally 
believed that the Dies irae, the day of wrath, was about to 
break and the end of the world was at hand. The priests 
made the most of it and the “Church” gathered in enormous 
riches. The frightened people brought vast treasures so 
as to be ready for the judgment day, as if the “Church” would 
have any need of these riches when the world came to an end. 
Thus ‘the blessed hope” like other doctrines of the faith 
delivered unto the Saints, had become for many centuries a 
forgotten truth. 

Forgotten truths were gradually recovered, and the last of 
all brought back to the Church, is the truth of the return of 
the Lord as the hope of the Church. The Reformation did 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 9 


not bring this recovery. The mighty men of God, the 
chosen instruments of the Spirit of God, to lead the people 
of God out of Romish night, paid little attention to the study 
of the truth of the Lord’s return. John Knox, John Calvin, 
Ulrich Zwingli and Martin Luther believed that Christ would 
return. They held the belief of their times, that when He 
makes good His promised second coming it would bring the 
end of all things. Dr. Martin Luther did not share the 
optimism of others that the church of the Reformation would 
lead on in victory and conquer the world for Christ. The 
writer has a copy of a sermon preached by Luther on “The 
Second Advent of Christ’’; the date of publication is 1539. 
In it he did not predict smooth things, but voiced the opinion 
that the anti-Christian forces would gather strength, that 
the Church would become more carnal, that true doctrines 
would be abandoned before the Lord comes again. He also 
states that the Lord would find a small remnant only awaiting 
His coming. But it was not given to these great servants 
of the Lord to discover and herald the details of the lost hope. 

Only in recent times the “Mid-night cry” has sounded 
forth to arouse the sleeping virgins, representing Christen- 
dom, and to restore to His true Church ‘“‘that blessed hope.” 
About a hundred years ago the Lord used a number of men, 
whose names are hardly known and recognized by Church 
historians, to unlock the blessed secrets of the Lord’s coming 
and the truths which cluster around it. These men were 
godly, scholarly and humble. ‘They possessed what is so 
rare today—humility, self-effacement paired with true 
scholarship. Through them was sounded forth, in Great 
Britain first of all, the mid-night cry “‘Behold the Bride- 
groom! Go ye forth to meet Him.” A great revival of the 
study of prophecy followed and that resulted in the mighty 
and far reaching revivals of the nineteenth century, by which 


10 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


countless thousands were saved. It brought about a greater 
activity in foreign missionary work. And now all the world 
hears of the truth of Christ’s coming back to earth again 
some future day. ‘Thousands of volumes have been pub- 
lished in scores of languages teaching the return of our Lord. 
Hymns are sung which express faith, hope and joy in anti- 
cipation of that glorious event. Conferences for the study of 
prophecy have been held and are being held throughout 
Christendom, and those who gather are inspired, by the fact 
of His coming, to greater devotion to the Lord and more self- 
sacrificing service for him and for humanity. For many 
years every outstanding evangelist has been a believer and a 
preacher of the Lord’s return. Some of the greatest and 
most successful missionary movements, like the China Inland 
Mission, have been inaugurated and maintained by those who 
believe in the imminent coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. It 
is also an interesting fact that all the best and most spiritual 
expositors of the Word of God for a number of years have 
been the men who know and teach the hope of His coming. 

Whenever the Holy Spirit revives a great truth, the enemy, 
the other spirit, begins at once to antagonize that truth. This 
he does in different ways. One of his ways is to put a 
counterfeit truth alongside of the real truth; in other words, 
he perverts the truth. He also is satisfied to let the restored 
truth stand as it is, and instead of fighting it openly, he links 
with it some of his soul destroying errors. In this way he 
succeeds in bringing the truth into disrepute. ‘Then he uses 
the friends of the truth to hurt the truth, in making them 
fanatics, and extremists. All this and much more he has 
done with the truth of the return of the Lord. 

Satan hates the Word of God and the Son of God. The 
first time the old serpent acted, he made a strike at the Word 
of God (Gen. iii); the second time he attacked the Son of 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 11 


God (Matt. iv). He hates the truth of the Lord’s coming 
as much as he hates the truth of the Gospel of our salvation. 
As soon as the blessed hope had been restored to the Church 
in a definite and Scriptural testimony, he used the Irvingite 
movement to hurt that truth. First he introduced the 
fanatical claim of the restoration of Pentecostal gifts, such as 
the gifts of speaking in a foreign tongue, prophecy and heal- 
ing. This was followed by one of the worst errors which 
men can teach, namely, that the Lord Jesus Christ had a 
fallen nature. Yet Edward Irving and his followers were 
strong believers in the second coming of Christ and taught it, 
for a time at least, in the Scriptural way. Then came the 
so-called Millerite delusion. Miller and the mother of the 
unscriptural Seventh Day Adventist cult, Mrs. White, were 
the subtle tools of the enemy. ‘They claimed to have visions 
and direct revelations from God. ‘Then dates were set in 
which the Lord would appear. This delusion did an untold 
harm in that generation, and the enemies of the study of 
prophecy still use the hallucinations of the originators of 
Seventh Day Adventism as a warning against such a study. 
The present day teaching of the Seventh Day cult is perni- 
ciously unscriptural. ‘The whole truth of the blessed hope is 
perverted by these errorists. Mormonism, the delusion of 
the Latter Day Saints, likewise mumbles about His return. 
Mormonism is a semi-pagan religion, and yet they teach that 
Christ will come back to earth. 

Perhaps the worst of all cults which teaches the return of 
our Lord, and which has done more harm among those who 
seek the truth than the Irvingites, the Adventists and the 
Mormons, is the Russell-cult. It was started by a man who 
called himself ‘Pastor’? Charles T. Russell. According to 
his scheme Christ came again in 1874. Since that time 
Russell taught, Christ has been here. Some of his deluded 


12 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


women followers claimed that Russell was Christ. Then 
forty years later He was to be revealed as King and the 
millennium was to begin. But what happened forty years 
later in 1914 is known to everybody. Besides teaching such 
inventions he denied the Godhead of the Lord Jesus Christ; he 
denied the physical resurrection of the body of Christ, and 
taught other abominable errors. The system once known as 
“Millennial Dawnism” has changed its name but not its 
teachings. It goes now by the name of “The International 
Bible Student Association.” 

Still more subtle are the numerous Pentecostal movements, 
such as the “Apostolic Faith’”—‘‘Latter Rain’”—‘‘McPher- 
sonism” and others. As we have shown in our volume on 
the ‘‘Healing Question,” church-history records many similar 
movements in the past. The last was the Irvingite move- 
ment. ‘These Pentecostal cults claim a return to Apostolic 
times, another Pentecost and with it the restoration of one 
of the inferior gifts of the Spirit, which is the easiest to 
counterfeit, the gift of tongues. With it goes faith-healing, 
generally called “Divine Healing.” Pentecostalism makes 
much of the coming of the Lord. ‘They claim to have visions 
_and trances in which they see Him coming. Some, like Mrs. 
McPherson of Los Angeles, claim verbal inspiration for their 
“messages” about the coming of the Lord. The different 
men and women healers, who attract thousands by their 
propaganda, like the Bosworth Brothers, Price, McPherson 
and others, also teach about His coming. 

And this is not all. The late war produced a large number 
of men and women, who instead of interpreting prophecy, 
turned to prophesying. They picked out the unfortunate 
Hohenzollern as the Anti-christ. ‘They set the exact year 
when the Lord would come again. ‘They were all found out 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 13 


as false prophets. But it has not discouraged them from 
trying again. We have collected pamphlets and articles in 
which every year, since 1916, is prophesied to be the year of 
His return. Even now a pamphlet is advertised in a number 
of magazines, which should never lend their pages for such 
propaganda, in which the author tries to answer in a per- 
verted way the question ‘‘How long to the end?” from the 
last chapter of Daniel. We have always warned and do so 
now against this unscriptural date and day setting, which is 
one of the devil’s choicest weapons against a sane and 
Scriptural study of the truth of the Lord’s return. And there 
is still more to be said. Those who held the Scriptural truth 
on this doctrine have become unsettled; some, for different 
reasons, have abandoned it altogether; others have accepted 
new theories as to the Church in relation to His coming, and 
one teaches now that no one need to trouble about a coming 
“great tribulation” preceding His return, for, as he says,there 
will be no tribulation(!) 

We have felt therefore that a simple setting forth, wholly 
from the New Testament, of the truth of the Lord’s coming, 
is demanded by these conditions. The best way to get hold 
of the truth is by turning to the Word of God and examining 
the different passages, in an exegetical way, which deal with 
that particular truth. We have done so in this little volume. 

The Modernist does not believe it. 'The Modernist of the 
last days of this age is prophesied in 2 Peter iii:1-4. He 
sneers at His return. How can he believe in such a 
return? If the Lord Jesus came into the world like every 
other human being comes into the world, as the Modernist 
believes by denying the Virgin Birth, then the Lord Jesus also 
died like every other human being dies, was buried like every 
other human being was and remained in the grave like every 


14 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


other human being remained there. How can He return, if 
He was not raised from the dead? From the side of the 
Modernist we expect nothing but sneers. He is hopeless. 

But we hope and pray that the simple way in which the 
doctrine of our Lord’s return is unfolded in the pages which 
follow will open the eyes of many believers who have treated 
the blessed hope with indifference. Books about the coming 
of the Lord are good enough, but many of them theorize and 
do not use the Scriptures as they should be used. Real light 
and conviction comes through the illumination of the Holy 
Spirit from the Text of the Word of God. We expect that 
this volume will be greatly used, not because it is a better 
book than others, for it is not, but because the Scriptures are 
so prominently displayed in its pages. 

We also hope that those who have followed men who claim 
to give “new light” and who have abandoned the simplicity 
of prophetic interpretation, will also be benefited by 
reading the progressive development of the doctrine of His 
Return as presented from the Scriptures. 


CHAPTER II 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD IN THE GOSPELS 
The Gospel of Matthew 


The Gospel of Matthew may rightly be termed the Genesis 
of the New Testament. It is the bridge which leads from 
the Old dispensation into the New. Its character is Jewish 
and dispensational; in it the Son of God is presented as 
Messiah the King, the Son of David, who came as the 
“minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm 
the promises made unto the fathers” (Rom. xv:8). The 
promises made unto the fathers are the promises of the 
kingdom, covenanted to David. ‘The angelic annunciation of 
His birth includes the throne of David and the kingdom. “‘ The 
Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David; 
and He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of 
His kingdom there shall be no end”’ (Luke ii:32, 33). The 
Gospel of Matthew reveals therefore that the Lord Jesus 
Christ is the Son of David, that He came as the King offering 
the promised kingdom to His own people, that the offered 
kingdom was not accepted and afterward He Himself was 
rejected. The divine arrangement of the first twelve 
chapters is of great importance. On the correct interpreta- 
tion of these twelve chapters depends the right understanding 
of much of the teaching of the rest of the New Testament. 
We give a brief review. 

In the first chapter the genealogy of the Lord Jesus and His 
birth are given. The genealogy shows that He is legally 
entitled to the throne of David, through Joseph.* The 
Second chapter contains the record of the wise men from the 





_ *For a complete exposition of the genealogy see the author’s Exposi- 
tion of Matthew. 


15 


16 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


East, seeking the newborn king of the Jews. No other 
Gospel records this interesting incident. The Gospel of 
Matthew being the Gospel of the King is the only Gospel into 
which this visit of these Gentiles fits. It is an instructive 
event which foreshadows future history. ‘The Gentiles from 
afar come first to seek the King, while Jerusalem knows noth- 
ing of her King, and no priest, elder or scribe went to Beth- 
lehem to worship Him. The ihird chapter shows the herald 
of the King, who announces the nearness of the kingdom, 
with the soon appearing of the King, and how the Lord Jesus 
entered upon His official ministry. In the fourth chapter the 
Lord Jesus being tested by the devil, is proven to be the King, 
the Holy One, who had no sin and could not sin. Im- 
mediately after He began to preach ‘‘the kingdom of heaven 
is at hand.” Chapters five, six and seven contain the so- 
called Sermon on the Mount, which only this Gospel records 
in full. The great discourse may rightly be called “the 
‘proclamation of the King” as to His Kingdom and its 
righteous government. Then follow two chapters in which 
a number of miracles are put together, taken out of their 
different settings, to demonstrate that He who spoke with 
authority, is the omnipotent King, the Son of God. In the 
tenth chapter we find the sending forth of the messengers of 
the King to preach the message of the kingdom to the lost 
sheep of the house of Israel, giving them the power to heal 
the sick, to cleanse the lepers and to raise the dead. The 
eleventh and twelfth chapters reveal the fact that neither the 
message nor the King would be accepted by the people, but 
that He and the kingdom would be rejected. 

With the twelfth chapter the kingdom preaching ceases. 
No longer goes forth the message “the kingdom of heaven is at. 
hand.” The King now speaks as prophet and announces 
the mysteries of the kingdom, the present age and its religious 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 17 


and moral characteristics. He also speaks prophetically of 
His coming passion, that He would be delivered into the 
hands of the Gentiles, be crucified and raised from the dead; 
He speaks of the future building of His Church and announces 
His return to thisearth. ‘There was no need for Him to speak 
prophetically of the literal kingdom, for that kingdom is the 
burden of all the prophets in the Old Testament; the bless- 
ings and glories of the earthly kingdom were known to the 
believing Jew as they are known to us. 

The first prophetic utterances of our Lord are therefore 
found after the preaching of the kingdom had been rejected, 
that is, after the twelfth chapter. It is true in connection with 
the healing of the centurion’s servant He had announced the 
rejection of the children of the kingdom, and the calling of 
the Gentiles, and at other occasions He hinted at future 
events (Matt. vili:11, 12; x:16-34; xi:20-24; xii:40-45), but 
these hints were given in connection with the anticipated 
rejection. 

In the thirteenth chapter He is seen sitting by the seaside. 
He had left the house, and spoke to the multitude and to 
His disciples in parables. These parables reveal the mys- 
teries of the kingdom. It is no longer the literal kingdom, 
but the development of the religious conditions of this dis- 
pensation. Our age with the King absent, His truth and 
doctrine preached and offered to the whole world, was un- 
revealed in the Old Testament. It was kept secret (xiii:35). 
In these parables He speaks of His future work at the end of 
the present age. ‘The first parable pictures prophetically the 
coming world-wide dissemination of the good seed. The 
second parable shows that this age will be a mixed age, the 
wheat and the tares grow together in the field till the harvest 
comes.* ‘The harvest is the end of the age, not “the end of 


*See our Commentary on Matthew Vol. ii, p. 1-25. 


18 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


the world.”’ At the end of the age, when the harvesting 
takes place, He will act, sending forth His angels as reapers, 
who gather the tares for the burning, while the righteous shine 
forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father (xiii:38-43). 

In the sixteenth chapter we find the first direct prophetic 
utterance of our Lord as to His second coming. He is with 
His disciples at the coast of Caesarea Philippi, the border- 
land of the Gentiles. In answer to His question Peter con- 
fessed Him as the Christ, the Son of the living God. Upon 
this God-given testimony the Lord predicted the future 
building of the Church upon Himself as the rock (verse 18); 
the future ministry of Peter (verse 19); His coming rejection, 
death and resurrection on the third day (verse 21) and then 
follows the prophetic announcement of another coming of 
Himself, 

Chapter xvi:27 ‘‘For the Son of Man shall come in the glory 
of His Father with Hts angels, and then He shall reward every 
man according to his works.’ Unmistakably He speaks of 
another coming. It is to be in the glory of His Father; 
the angels will accompany Him, and His coming will bring 
reward to every man according:to his works. It could not 
mean His first coming for He speaks of an event in the future, 
nor did He reward every man according to his works at His 
first advent. The verse which follows presents an apparent 
difficulty: “Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, 
which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming 
in His kingdom.” 'The reasoning of many commentators on 
these additional words of our Lord is as follows: The Lord 
could not have meant a literal, a personal coming of Himself, 
for all those who heard Him utter these words have died. 
He meant a spiritual coming of Himself. ‘These expositors 
apply mostly His coming in His kingdom to the gift of the 
Holy Spirit; they teach that He came on the day of Pente- 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 19 


cost. But how can the coming of the Holy Spirit reasonably 
be the coming of the Son of Man? The Holy Spirit is the 
third person of the Trinity and the Lord Jesus, the Son of 
God, is the second person. Nor did the angels appear on the 
day when the Spirit of God came to earth. And what about 
‘“‘rewarding every man according to his works”? Other com- 
mentators say, He meant the destruction of Jerusalem, while 
still others identify His coming with the death of the Chris- 
tian. But did He appear with His angels in the year 70, 
or did He give then every man according to his works? 
As far as the death of the believer is concerned, Scripture 
makes it clear that when the believer dies he goes to be with 
the Lord, and therefore it cannot be the coming of the Lord. 

The chapter division in this part of Matthew’s Gospel is 
unfortunate. There should be no break here. The next 
chapter records the transfiguration, to which our Lord re- 
ferred, when He announced that some of those who stood 
there should see Him coming. From 2 Peter i:16-20 we 
learn the deeper meaning of His transfiguration. Peter in 
this passage declares that he was an eyewitness of His 
majesty, and that he made known unto believers the power 
and coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. That wonderful scene 
on the holy mountain was a pattern of the return of the 
Lord in power and glory, when He comes in His kingdom, 
surrounded by His Saints, represented by Moses and Elijah, 
one who had died, the other who had gone to heaven without 
dying. The Lord’s face shone like the sun; He is clothed 
with the glory of the Father. As He stood upon that 
mountain, so will He stand some future day upon this earth 
as King of kings and Lord of lords, attended by His Saints 
and the angels of God. 

Chapter xix:28 “And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say 
unto you, that ye which have followed Me, in the regeneration 


20 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of His glory, ye also 
shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” 
These words were spoken by our Lord when the rich young 
man had left Him, and Peter asked the question “Behold, we 
have forsaken all, and followed Thee, what shall we have 
therefore?” Here again our Lord speaks of reward for those 
who have followed Him. He does not promise rewards at 
the present time. There will be a regeneration, a time when 
all things will be made new, and when that time comes He 
will not be the occupant of the Father’s throne, but will re- 
ceive His own throne, the throne of His glory. ‘Then He will 
reign and judge, and His own will be associated with Him. 
But the time of regeneration for the earth, the deliverance of 
groaning creation, does not come till He receives the throne 
of His glory, and He will not receive that throne till He comes 
in the glory, of the Father and His angels with Him. 

Chapter xx11:44 “And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall 
be broken, but on whomsoever 1t shall fall, rt will grind him to 
powder.’ He had quoted the one hundred and eighteenth 
Psalm concerning the stone the builders rejected, which 
becomes the head of the corner. The other New Testament 
references show that He is the stone, rejected by the Jews, 
and that He became the corner stone. While He does not 
mention His return in the quoted words, that event is clearly 
indicated. ‘The Jews fell on the stone, rejected Christ, and 
were nationally and spiritually broken. ‘The day comes when 
Christ, the stone, will fall on others and grind them to 
powder. ‘The second chapter in Daniel gives us the complete 
picture of the smiting stone, which falls from heaven and 
deals the great man-image such a blow that every portion of 
it becomes like the chaff of the summer threshing floors 
(Dan. ii:35).* The stone which did the work becomes a 


*See Exposition of Daniel by A. C. G., Chapter II. 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 21 


mountain filling the whole earth. The man-image is the 
symbol of the times of the Gentiles, the stone represents the 
second coming of Christ, and the transformation of the stone 
into a mountain is the prophetic symbol of the world-wide 
kingdom of Christ. 

Chapter xxi11:38, 39 “Behold, your house is left unto you 
desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see Me henceforth, 
tull ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of 
the Lord.’ The last sentence is to be linked with His 
promised return. It will be fulfilled in the day of His second 
coming, when a remnant of believers from His own earthly 
people will welcome Him with the Messianic greeting 
recorded in Psalm cxviii. 

We turn next to the greatest prophetic discourse of our 
Lord, the so called Olivet Discourse. Matthew gives it 
complete, while Mark and Luke contain certain omissions 
and additions. ‘This greatest of all prophecies of the Lord 
Jesus Christ has for its center His personal, visible and 
glorious return to this earth. He predicts events preceding 
His return, the event itself, what is connected with it, and 
the events which follow His return. 

Chapter: xxiv:1-2 “And Jesus went out, and departed from 
the temple: and H1s disciples came to Him for to show Him 
the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said unto them, See 
ye not all these things. Verily I say unto you, There shall not 
be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown 
down.’ The full prophecy as to the destruction of Jerusalem 
and the temple is given by Luke. Here the bare fact is stated 
that the temple is to be destroyed. It is a serious error to 
apply what follows exclusively to the destruction of the 
temple and to Jerusalem. This event is not in view at all in 
the Gospel of Matthew. We shall demonstrate this as we 
follow the text. 


22 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


After He had uttered the words as to the coming destruc- 
tion of the temple buildings, the disciples asked Him ques- 
tions as to His coming, the sign of His coming and the end 
of the age. 

The great center of the discourse. contained in chapters 
xxiv and xxv is found in verses 29 and 30 of the twenty-fourth 
chapter: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall 
the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and 
the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens 
shall be shaken. And then shall appear the sign of the Son 
of man in heaven, and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, 
and they shall see the Son of man coming 1n the clouds of heaven 
with power and great glory.” 

Preceding this great prophetic announcement the Lord 
speaks of the present age and more particularly of its end. 
The events which will transpire in connection with the 
Jewish people, rehabilitated in Palestine, a believing remnant 
suffering during the great tribulation, their deliverance, the 
restoration of the scattered tribes to their own land, are 
predicted by Him. Verses 4-45 of the twenty-fourth chapter 
contain these future events. We find next three parables in 
chapter xxiv:45 to chapter xxv:30. .. Each of these parables 
is related to His return. ‘These parables reveal the religious 
conditions prevailing up to the time of His coming again, and 
how He will deal with these conditions. ‘The final section 
of the prophetic disclosure shows Him upon the throne of His 
glory with the nations gathered about Him, whom He judges. 
This great judgment is prophesied by Him in chapter xxv:31- 
46. We take up each section briefly. Our complete com- 
mentary on Matthew in two volumes devotes nearly a 
hundred pages to this great portion of the first Gospel. 

I. The events which precede His visible and personal 
return. The opening statements of this first section in verses 





THE RETURN OF THE LORD 23 


5-7 are applicable to the present age in a general way. 
Throughout this age there have been false Christs deceiving 
many; there have been wars and rumors of wars, nation 
rising against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. The 
many wars have always been followed by famines and 
pestilences. Every century has brought earthquakes in 
divers places. Our own generation has witnessed the great- 
est war of all history, followed by the greatest famines and the 
greatest pestilences. Furthermore we have also witnessed 
the greatest earthquakes of historic times. What a con- 
firmation of the words of our Lord! Before this age ends the 
same things will happen again, but on a larger scale. The 
world is even now getting ready for it and Revelation vi, the 
breaking of the four seals, foretells these events likewise. 
The greater portion of the discourse relating to this present 
age, is taken up with the end of it, as it will take place, not 
among the Gentiles, but among the Jews. ‘This is clearly 
demonstrated by the fact that our Lord calls special attention 
to the prophet Daniel and his predicted “‘abomination of 
desolation” (verse 15). The Danielian prophecy has nothing 
to do with the Church or the Gentiles, but the abomination 
of desolation takes place on Jewish ground, in Jerusalem and 
Palestine. The Jews are returning to their own land; a 
restoration in unbelief takes place before our eyes. It will 
be fully consummated in the near future when the national 
aspiration of Jewry will be realized in the long proposed 
Jewish state. When finally the true Church, the body of 
Christ, will no longer be on earth, when its supernatural 
removal (1 Thess. iv:16-18) has taken place, the Lord will 
call a remnant from among the masses of unbelieving 
Israelites; a part of this remnant will be in Palestine while 
others will move about as witnesses among the Gentile 
nations. Of this believing remnant during the end of the age 


24 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


our Lord speaks next in verses 9-28. On account of their 
faith and their witness they will suffer persecution. Many 
false prophets will arise and they must endure to the end of 
the seven years, the close of the age, in order to be saved 
(not a spiritual, but an earthly salvation) to enter the king- 
dom, which comes with the King’s return. ‘They will be His 
Witnesses among all the nations, preaching the Gospel of the 
kingdom, which is, the heralding of the coming of the King, 
calling upon the nations to repent. ‘There will then be great 
tribulation, in the land, and throughout the world. Anti- 
christ will reign in his satanic power for 1260 days, or three 
years and a half, as revealed in Daniel and Revelation. 
Politically, commercially and religiously confusion will reign. 
When this period of time has ended “immediately after the 
tribulation,” the Lord predicts He will come again in great 
power and glory in the clouds of heaven. ‘The only way to 
interpret the words He spoke is the literal interpretation. 
It does not mean a spiritual coming, but a literal coming. 
The age will end as predicted; there will be a great tribu- 
lation and after its force is spent Christ will come back to 
earth again. All kinds of false teachings have been connected 
with the plain statements of our Lord. One Pastor Charles 
T. Russell deceived many by his invention that Christ came 
back in a secret manner in 1874, and that He would be 
publicly revealed in 1914. Others deny that there ever will 
be a great tribulation, like a recent voluminous writer in his 
attempts to teach prophecy. He follows the same argument 
of nearly all commentators, that the words of our Lord were 
fulfilled in the past when Jerusalem was destroyed by the 
Roman armies of Titus. But the theory that our Lord 
speaks of the destruction of Jerusalem, and that His coming 
in the clouds of heaven in great power and glory happened 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 25 


in connection with that event is unscriptural. The words of 
our Lord which follow are the conclusive evidence. 

“And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a 
trumpet, and they shall gather His elect from the four winds, 
from one end of heaven to the other” (verse 31). Did this take 
place when Jerusalem was destroyed? Who are the elect? 
This word is found in the Synoptics seven times. In the 
Epistles it is used nine times. As used in the Gospels it 
never means the Church of Jesus Christ, but His people 
Israel; as used in the Epistles the word “‘elect”® never means 
the people Israel, but always the Church. ‘This is a valuable 
fact. We ask, when Jerusalem was destroyed did the Lord 
come and send His angels to gather the people Israel together 
from their world-wide dispersion? No! ‘They were scat- 
tered as a result among all the nations of the world. This 
in itself is proof that our Lord speaks of His future coming. 
Others are so elementary in their exegesis that they identify 
the gathering of the elect by angels with the home gathering 
of the Church as prophesied in 1 Thess. iv:16-18. As if there 
could be any kind of correspondency between Matt. xxiv:31 
and that passage. 

The mentioning of the fig tree fully confirms the truth of 
what we have stated. ‘The fig tree is emblematic of Israel. 
The cursing of the fig tree and the subsequent withered con- 
dition is symbolically Israel during this age. But the fig 
tree is to put forth new leaves. The Jewish hope is not dead. 
It died when Jerusalem was destroyed, but it will be revived 
immediately before the age ends and the Lord returns. 

But someone will probably point to verse 34, *‘ This genera- 
tion shall not pass away, till all these things be fulfilled.’ The 
word “‘generation” has been made to mean that very genera- 
tion living then. Therefore, it is claimed, the Lord taught 


26 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


His return to take place within their life time. But the 
Greek word “Genea” has the meaning of ‘a race of people.” 
It is used in this sense in Luke xvi:8 and elsewhere in the 
New Testament. ‘“This generation” means the race which 
sprung from Abraham, God’s chosen earthly people. Well 
have they been called “the everlasting nation.” 

Care must also be taken with interpreting verses 40 and 
41. The one who is taken, when the Lord comes in visible 
glory, is taken in judgment, the one who is left, is left to 
have a share in the earthly kingdom. It is different, as we 
point out later, when the Lord comes for His Church. Then 
some will be taken to be caught up in clouds to meet the 
Lord in the air, and others will be left to pass through the 
great tribulation and face the day of wrath. 

II. We give a brief word on the three parables which follow. 
The first parable is the one which describes the faithful and 
the evil servant. The faithful and wise servant reckons 
with the fact that his Lord is coming some day and therefore 
he gives meat in due season to the household. Having done 
this and acted faithfully, the Lord calls him blessed. “‘Blessed 
is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so 
doing. Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler 
over all his goods.”” The evil servant says “‘my lord delayeth 
his coming.” This leads to his outrageous actions. Then 
the lord comes in a day when the evil servant does not look 
for him at all and punishes him for his evil deeds. Anyone 
can trace in this parable the prevailing religious conditions of 
this age, past, present and future. Had the Church always 
believed that the Lord is coming back, ecclesiastical condi- 
tions would have been far different from what they have been. 
But nearly all Christendom either denies the fact of His 
coming, or puts it into the remote future, thus saying “my 
Lord delays His coming.” 





THE RETURN OF THE LORD oa 


The second parable, the parable of the ten virgins, pictures 
similar conditions. ‘The ten virgins are typical of professing 
Christendom. ‘The wise virgins who have oil, the symbol 
of the Holy Spirit, represent true believers; the foolish virgins 
who have lamps only, but no oil, represent those who have 
the outward form of godliness, but are destitute of the reality, 
for they are unsaved Church members. In the beginning 
of the Church all waited for the coming of the Bridegroom. 
But as He tarried the blessed hope was given up, and for 
many centuries nothing was heard of the return of Christ. 
The midnight cry was sounded (as it is now) and while the 
Wise virgins, true believers, trimmed their lamps and the 
foolish virgins tried to obtain oil, the Bridegroom came, 
Those who were ready entered in to be with Him; the others 
faced a closed door. 

The parable of the talents is the third parable. Two used 
the talents they had received; one did not use his talent. 
‘Those who were faithful were rewarded and the unfaithful 
one was punished. It will be seen that each parable is teach- 
ing the return of the Lord, rewarding those who are faithful 
and punishing the unfaithful. Without belief in the coming 
of the Lord these parables are meaningless. 

III. The third section of the discourse is not a parable, 
but a prophecy. It is generally called “the parable of the 
sheep and the goats.” But our Lord does not say it is a 
parable. It is a prophecy, revealing His judgment work 
after His return, when He takes the throne of His glory, not 
in heaven but on earth. The Father’s throne which the 
glorified Son of Man occupies during the present age, is in 
heaven; the throne of the Son of Man will be established on 
and over the earth; it is the throne of His glory. This 
judgment is generally called the universal judgment at the 
end of the world. The Scriptures do not teach a universal 


28 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


judgment. ‘There is a judgment of the righteous, as there 
is a resurrection of the just; there is a judgment of the wicked 
dead, as there is a second resurrection unto damnation. But 
neither one of these judgments or resurrections is taught in 
Matthew xxv:31-46. Nothing is said about a resurrection. 
The judgment concerns living nations. Some are put on 
His right hand; others on His left. The standard of judg- 
ment is what the nations have done, or have not done, to 
His brethren. His brethren are not the members of His 
body, but His brethren according to the flesh, Jews. He sent 
forth these Jewish messengers during the end of the age. 
They preached the Gospel of the Kingdom (verse 14). Some 
of the nations believed and while the judgments of the Lord 
were in the earth they learned righteousness (Is. xxvi:9) and 
expressed their righteousness in doing good to these mes- 
sengers. Other nations did not accept this final call of the 
mercy of God; they mistreated the messengers and did not 
show them kindness. ‘They will be put on the left and pass 
away as nations from the earth, while the nations which 
believed and learned righteousness will remain on earth to 
enter the prepared kingdom. 

Only one more passage in Matthew mentions His return. 

Chapter xxv1:64 “Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said; 
nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man 
sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of 
heaven.” Itisasolemn passage. The high priest had said 
to his prisoner, the Lord Jesus Christ; “I adjure thee by the 
living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the 
Son of God.” Then He answered in the words which we 
have quoted. In them He confirms His Deity, predicts His 
exaltation to the right hand of God, and His visible return 
in the clouds of heaven. Upon this true witness He was 
judged guilty of death. When He spoke of His return “in 





THE RETURN OF THE LORD 29 


the clouds of heaven” the Jewish officials knew that He 
claimed to be the One whom Daniel saw in his night vision, 
who receives from the hands of God the kingdom, whom all 
nations and languages are to serve (Dan. vii:14). 


The Gospel of Mark 


There are not many passages in the Gospel of Mark which 
mention His return. We mention those which are not found 
in Matthew. 

Chapter vit1:38 “Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of 
Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of 
him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when He cometh 
in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.” ‘This is also 
quoted by Luke in the ninth chapter. Mark and Luke 
record the transfiguration and link with it the words of the 
Lord that some would not taste death till they see the king- 
dom of God (Mark ix:1; Luke 1x:26). The Olivet prophetic 
discourse is reported by Mark only in part; the parables of 
Matthew, and the description of the judgment of nations are 
omitted. But there is something in Mark which neither 
Matthew nor Luke mention. 

Chapter x111:34-37 “For the Son of man 1s as a man taking 
a far journey, who left His house, and gave authority to His 
servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter 
to watch. Watch ye therefore, for ye know not when the master 
of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cock- 
crowing, or in the morning: lest coming suddenly he find you 
sleeping. And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.” 
The far journey is His return to the Father. He left His 
house, the relationship with His covenant people Israel. He 
also gave authority to His servants, His apostles, and after 
His ascension, as the head of the body, He gave to every 


30 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


one his work. The porter, who is commanded to watch, may 
be applied to the Holy Spirit, just as this word is used by our 
Lord in the tenth chapter of the Gospel of John. Then He 
commanded them to watch. He is coming again, but the 
exact time is not revealed by Him. He told them before 
“But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the 
angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. 
Take heed, watch and pray, for ye know not when the time 1s” 
(Verse 32, 33). Itis presumption to try to find out the exact 
time of His return. Setting the time of His second coming 
has been in the past a popular delusion, and it is still being 
indulged in, in spite of the miserable failures of fanatics. 
Seventh Day Adventism with its perverted Gospel and 
prophetic teaching, started with Miller and the false proph- 
etess Mrs. White, who prophesied the day of His coming. 
So did Russell of the Millennial Dawn delusion (International 
Bible Student Association). Then there was Mr. M. Baxter, 
founder of the “Prophetic News,” who published his ‘Forty 
Coming Wonders” in which he fixed the dates for all coming 
prophetic events. When the time arrived and nothing 
happened, he invented new dates, and published a new 
edition. ‘Then there are smaller pamphlets written by Mr. 
Baker, W. B. Blackstone and others, which attempt to figure 
out the time of His coming. All date and day setting is 
unscriptural, and the believer does well to ignore all attempts 
to ascertain the time of His coming, for it is unrevealed. 


The Gospel of Luke 


The Gospel of Luke presents our Lord as the perfect man. 
The Holy Spirit gives in this account, written by the beloved 
physician, the details of His entrance into His earthly life by 
the Virgin-birth. The Modernist, who denies this great 


THE RETURN OF THE, LORD 31 


foundation rock of the Gospel, charges that two of the Gospel 
records (Mark and John) have not a word about the Virgin- 
birth; Matthew speaks of it and only Luke gives a full account 
of Mary of Nazareth, the angel’s visit and his heaven sent 
message. On account of the silence of the other Evangelists 
they reject the fact of the Virgin-birth as unreliable. It 
shows, like all other claims made by this rationalistic school, 
their blindness. Matthew was led to mention the bare 
fact that Mary had conceived by the Holy Spirit, because 
Matthew begins his Gospel with a genealogy, which is the 
genealogy of Joseph to whom Mary was espoused. To 
show that Joseph was not the father of our Lord, Matthew 
mentions the fact of the Virgin-birth. Inasmuch as Luke 
wrote of Him as the second Man, the perfect Man, the Spirit 
of God gave through his pen the full facts of the Virgin- 
birth. Mark did not write about this, because he draws the 
picture of the perfect servant, and John was led to write of 
His Deity and the eternal life, and ety was no need to re- 
state what Luke’s Gospel contains. 

We quote the message of the Bon Gabriel, lohaneee 1:3 1-33 
‘And behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth 
a son, and shalt call His name Jesus. He shall be great, and 
shall be called the Son of the Highest; and the LordGod shall give 
unto Him the throne of His Father David, and He shall reign 
over the house of Jacob for ever, and of His kingdom there shall 
be no end.” How literally the first part of this announcement 
has been fulfilled is well known. The second part, relating 
to the throne of David, His reign over the house of Jacob 
and His kingdom, is generally declared to be sa piritual throne 
of David in heaven, and a spiritual reign, and a spiritual 
kingdom. When God made a covenant with David He 
did not promise him a spiritual throne in heaven, nor a 
spiritual kingdom, but an earthly throne and an earthly 


32 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


kingdom. The return of our Lord, the Son of Man and the 
Son of David, will bring the realization of the promised throne 
and the promised kingdom. 

The three songs of praise which follow in the Gospel of 
Luke, the Magnificat of the Virgin, the praise of Zechariah 
and the adoration of Simeon in the temple, have a prophetic 
strain looking forward to the consummation, when the King 
receives His throne. 

Chapter x11:35-40 “Let your loins be girded about, and your 
lights burning: and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for 
their lord, when he will return on account of the wedding: that 
when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him 1mme- 
diately. Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord when he 
cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall 
gird himself, and make them sit down at meat, and will come 
forth and serve them. And if He shall come in the second watch, 
or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those 
servants. And this know, that tf the goodman of the house had 
known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, 
and not have suffered his house to be broken through. Be ye 
therefore ready also: for the Son of man cometh at an hour when 
ye think not.” It is obvious that He speaks of His second 
coming. He exhorts His own to wait for that event with 
girded loins and shining lights. He comes on account, or, 
for the wedding (the correct rendering). He will come sud- 
denly and His watching servants are to be rewarded. He 
will come forth and gird Himself, as when He washed the 
disciples’ feet, and serve them. What service that will be 
when He has His redeemed with Him, we do not know. He 
speaks of the second and third watches only, and not of the 
first and the fourth. In Matthew xiv we have a hint that He 
will come in the fourth watch. 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 33 


Peter spoke asking “‘Lord speakest Thou this parable unto 
us, or even to all?’ He answered him with a parable of the 
faithful and unfaithful servant (verses 42-48) it is the same 
parable as recorded in Matt. xxiv with something added as 
to the future punishment (verses 47, 48). 

Chapter xvi1:24-37. In this passage He speaks of His 
future coming once more “‘For as the lightning, that lighteneth 
out of the one part under heaven shineth unto the other part under 
heaven: so shall also the Son of man be in His day.” The 
present age is ‘“‘man’s day,’’ when He comes again His day 
will begin. ‘That day will come suddenly. Then He men- 
tions what precedes His return, “‘But first must He suffer 
many things, and be rejected of this generation.” 

What is recorded by Matthew is also stated by Luke with 
some additions. ‘‘4nd as it was in the days of Noe, so shall 
it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they 
drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until 
the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came and 
destroyed them all. Likewise also as 1t was in the days of Lot: 
they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, 
they builded: but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom 1t 
rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. 
Even thus shall tt be in the day when the Son of man ts revealed,” 

He does not speak of righteousness and peace reigning on 
earth when He comes, but His day, the day of His visible 
manifestation, will be preceded by the days of Noah and Lot, 
that is, the same moral conditions will prevail on earth. The 
days of Noah were days of violence; the days of Lot were days 
of immorality. The common affairs of the race in commerce, 
agriculture and in social life continued till sudden judgment 
came. Thus it will be before He comes again. Violence, 
immorality and other forms of unrighteousness and lawless- 


34 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


ness will increase and culminate in the great tribulation. He 
does not find a converted world when He returns. Both the 
deluge and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah are 
typical of the judgment which falls upon the ungodly when 
He comes back; and as Noah and his house were saved, and 
Lot escaped, so will the righteous be delivered. 

Chapter xviii:8 “ Nevertheless when the Son of Man cometh 
shall He find the faith on the earth?” ‘This was spoken after 
the parable of the unjust judge (verses 1-7). The widow 
is the remnant of Israel sorely pressed during the days of 
tribulation. ‘They cry, at that time, as His own elect, night 
and day unto Him (verse 7). His answer will be His visible 
manifestation by which they will be delivered. But when 
He comes He will not find the faith, that is the faith revealed 
in His Holy Word, on the earth. The Spirit of God in the 
Epistles gives the complete revelation as to what He will 
find when He returns. 

Chapter xix:11-27. This passage contains the parable of the 
ten pounds. It was occasioned by those who thought “that 
the Kingdom of God should immediately appear.” They 
recognized in Him the promised Messiah, the King, but did 
not realize that the cross and the suffering had to precede the 
glory. He speaks of Himself as going to a far country to 
receive a kingdom, and to return. Inthe interval His servants 
are to be faithful with the entrusted pounds; He tells them 
“Occupy till I come.” The ten servants like the ten 
virgins, represent Christendom. The one who hides the 
pound in the sweat cloth (soudarion) is called a wicked serv- 
ant, and represents unsaved, professing Christians. The 
citizens mentioned in verse 14, who hated the nobleman, are 
the Jews. The parable teaches that when the Lord returns 
He will reward His faithful servants and will give them a 
share in His Kingdom. 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 35 


The Olivet discourse is given in part by Luke in the twenty 
first chapter. We do not repeat what has already been 
stated in Matthew’s account, Chapter «x1:20-24. ‘This pas- 
sage predicts the destruction of Jerusalem and the world- 
wide dispersion of the Jewish people. We quote the last 
verse. ‘And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall 
be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be 
trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are 
fulfilled.” Jerusalem will not always be trodden down by the 
Gentiles. Redemption and glory is everywhere promised 
in the prophetic Word of the Old Testament to Jerusalem. 
But the accomplishment of these promises is everywhere 
linked with the coming of the once rejected King. There will 
be no restoration of Israel, no glory for Jerusalem, till Christ 
comes back. The times of the Gentiles will end. Their end 
is the end of the age and that comes with His return. How 
long do the times of the Gentiles last? When will they end? 
Nobody knows. We know when they began, but the dura- 
tion of these times is unrevealed. 

Verses 25-28 “And there shall be signs in the sun and tn the 
moon, and in the stars, and upon the earth distress of nations, 
with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring: Men’s hearts 
failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which 
are coming on the earth, for the powers of heaven shall be 
shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a 
cloud wth power and great glory. And when these things begin 
to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your 
redemption draweth nigh.” 

Between verse 24 and 25 comes in the present age. When 
the age ends times of distress and perplexity will come, 
heaven and earth will be shaken before the Son of man ap- 
pears in a cloud with power and great glory. Verses 34-36 
contain words of warning and exhortation in view of the fact 


36 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


of His coming. While these words mean primarily those 
who wait for His visible coming to the earth, they also have 
an application to His Church waiting to meet Him in the air. 


The Gospel of John 


The striking difference between the Synoptics and the 
fourth Gospel, the Gospel of John, is known to every thought- 
ful Christian. Without enlarging upon these differences 
we call attention to the total absence in this Gospel of all 
the prophetic announcements of His return, which we have 
found so frequently in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and 
Luke. Nothing is found in this Gospel about the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem in the year 70, for the simple reason that 
the Gospel of John was written at least 20 years after that 
event. Nor is there found a single word of the Olivet dis- 
course. Not once does our Lord refer to the great tribula- 
tion. Once He speaks of Antichrist, the false Messiah, 
but without any further teaching as to the end of the age. 
(John v:43). The Spirit of God guided the hand of the 
beloved disciple to omit all these statements, not to pen 
anything about the characteristics of the age, the wars, 
the rumors of war, the famines, the pestilences or earth- 
quakes. Nor did John record the repeated declarations 
our blessed Lord made, that He would come in the clouds 
of heaven with power and great glory. Nothing is said of 
the regathering of Israel, the budding fig tree. In vain do 
we look for the kingdom parables with their great dispen- 
sational messages. 

Why is it thus? The purpose of the Gospel of John 
furnishes the answer. It is the Gospel which reveals Christ 
as the Son of God, with the assurance that those who believe 
on Him have life, eternal life, through His name. What 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 37 


this eternal life is, in what it consists, what it includes, and 
how it is sustained and manifested, is all blessedly unfolded 
in the fourth Gospel. 

His disciples, except Judas, who betrayed Him, had be- 
lieved on Him; they were therefore born again and had re- 
ceived in the new birth eternal life. In His high priestly 
prayer (John xvii) He speaks of them as being not of the 
world even as He is not of the world. By believing on Him 
they belonged to Him, were separated from the world, 
which lieth in the wicked one; their lot and portion was no 
longer with the world, for they had passed from death unto 
life, no longer the subjects of judgment but destined to eternal 
glory. While in the Synoptics they represent prophetically 
the believing Jewish remnant in the end of the age, in the 
Gospel of John they represent not the nucleus of an earthly, 
literal kingdom, but the nucleus of the Church. According 
to the eternal purpose they were members of that body al- 
ready, soon to be baptized by the coming of the Holy Spirit 
into the body of Christ, the Church. 

Because they are the representatives, prophetically, in 
Matthew, Mark and Luke of believing Jews of the end of 
the age, these Gospels record His sayings as to the tribula- 
tion, the abomination of desolation, the persecutions, the 
false Christs, His visible coming, and the signs of His coming 
and the regathering of Israel. But inasmuch as they are 
seen in John’s Gospel as identified with Him, no longer of 
this world, but brought into a new and heavenly relationship, 
His second visible coming, the preceding events, the signs 
of His coming, the end of the age, the tribulation and the 
regathering of Israel, as well as other events are not men- 
tioned in this Gospel. 

And why not? Because the Church of Jesus Christ, com- 
posed of all true believers, born again, not of the world as 


38 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


He is not of the world, identified with Him, will not be on 
the earth during the end of the age, will not pass through the 
tribulation of those days, has nothing to do with the “abomi- 
nation of desolation” and will not see Him coming in the 
clouds of heaven with power and great glory. This great 
and comforting truth, that those who belong to Christ and 
constitute His body, will not be on earth during the great 
tribulation, but have a better hope, is, for the first time, 
brought out in the Gospel of John. When we examine 
the teaching of the Epistles as to the return of our Lord, 
we shall discover the full meaning of that blessed hope, 
which is stated by our Lord in the Gospel of John. 

And now we are ready to quote and explain the one, and 
only one passage, in this Gospel in which the coming again of 
our Lord is directly and most blessedly promised by Himself. 

Chapter xiv:1-3 “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe 
in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many 
mansions: tf 1t were not so I would have told you. TI go to 
prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place 
for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself, that 
where I am, ye may be also.’ This is a unique promise. 
No such promise is recorded in the preceding Gospels, nor 
is there anything like it written in the Scriptures of the Old 
Testament. The prophet Isaiah indicated that God had 
something very blessed in reserve for those who would see 


the days of the Messiah. “For since the beginning of the 


world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither 
hath eye seen, O God, beside Thee, what He hath prepared 
for him that waiteth for Him” (Isaiah lxiv:4). This is 
quoted in the New Testament (1 Cor. 11:9) and there we 
read “But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit.” 
Here then is a new revelation. 


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THE RETURN OF THE LORD 39 


Let us remember once more that the eleven were Jews 
by nature. What was their hope? They believed in, 
and expected, the coming of the Messiah, the Son of David. 
Their hope was an earthly hope. They expected to be with 
Him in His earthly kingdom. The mother of the sons of 
Zebedee requested that her- sons might occupy places at 
His right hand and at His left in His reign. To be in Jeru- 
salem, the capital of the coming kingdom, to have share in 
that kingdom, was the highest hope of the believing Jew. 
And these disciples expected nothing else. They could 
not expect a higher calling and a more glorious destiny, 
for Old Testament revelation is silent on such a higher 
destiny. ; 

They were greatly troubled. He had said to them “‘Little 
children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek 
Me, and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot 
come; so now I say to you.” Before that He had announced 
His betrayal by one of their number. Then Judas having 
“received the sop went immediately out; and it was night.” 
They did not know what it all meant. What would become 
of their Jewish hope, if He leaves them alone? Can there 
be a kingdom without the presence of the King? Then came 
His soothing words ‘‘Let not your heart be troubled,” fol- 
lowed by the most blessed statements. He speaks of the 
Father’s house, not of a place on earth, in Jerusalem or the 
kingdom, but in heaven where the Father dwelleth. He 
tells them that He goes there to prepare a place for them. 
They expected He would prepare a place for them in Jeru- 
salem. Then comes the assurance, with which they had 
become familiar from what He had said at other occasions: 
“T will come again.” What followed was altogether new to 
them: “and receive you unto Myself, that where I am, there 


40 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


ye may be also.” They heard from His lips that He would 
leave them, that His destination would be the Father’s house, 
there He would prepare a place for them; in due time He 
would come back, receive them unto Himself, and make 
them the sharers of His place inthe Father’s house. How 
perplexed they must have been. They did not realize what 
it all meant. They still clung to their Jewish hope, but 
after the Holy Spirit came they understood the better hope 
of a better inheritance. Thus Peter wrote to his brethren 
in the dispersion, ‘‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath 
begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of 
Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, 
and undefiled, that fadeth not away, reserved for you in 
heaven” (1 Peter 1:2,3). When Christ expired on the 
cross their Jewish hope died; when He was raised from among 
the dead and received up into glory, they were begotten 
again unto a living hope, and then realized that their in- 
heritance is heavenly, with Him in everlasting glory. 

The word of our Lord in the fourteenth chapter of John 
is the first time the blessed hope is mentioned, something 
entirely different, as we have shown, from the Jéwish hope 
of an earthly kingdom. We shall find the full revelation 
as to this hope in the different Epistles. How near and dear 
this hope, to have His own with Himself in the Father’s 
house, is to His own loving heart, may be learned from His 
great prayer. ‘There He prayed the Father for that, which 
some future day, will be gloriously answered. “Father, I 
will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me 
where I am, that they may behold My glory, which Thou 
hast given Me; for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of 
the world.” (John xvii:24). 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 41 


There is another passage in John in which our Lord men- 
tions His coming indirectly. He had announced, at the 
shore of Tiberias, Peter’s destiny. ‘Then Peter asked con- 
cerning the destiny of John. In answer the Lord said 
“Tf I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? 
Follow thou Me.” (xxi:21,22). But our Lord did not say 
that John should not die. 

Our Lord probably indicated that John should tarry 
longer than the other Apostles, and as a very old man, as a 
prisoner in Patmos, should behold the great events in the 
“Revelation of Jesus Christ” connected with His coming 
for the Church, and His coming in power and glory for judg- 

ment and the establishment of His reign over the earth. 


CHAPTER III 
THE RETURN OF THE LORD IN THE BOOK OF ACTS 


The Book of the Acts of the Apostles records the beginning 
of the Church by the coming of the Holy Spirit on the day 
of Pentecost, and how the Gospel witness was given to Jeru- 
salem, Judea, Samaria, and to the Gentiles. 

The first chapter gives the account of the Lord’s ascension. 
For forty days He had shown Himself alive by many in- 
fallible proofs, and spoke to them of the things of the king- 
dom. At their last meeting, when He was about to be 
taken up from them, they asked Him a question. “Lord, 
wilt Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” 
The Jewish hope still dominated their thinking. But what 
was His answer? He did not reprove them for their carna, 
expectations, nor did He say that they were mistakenl 
that another kingdom is coming, and that there will be no 
kingdom restered to Israel. If He had said this He would 
have contradicted the testimony of all the prophets in the 
Old Testament. ‘‘4nd He said unto them, It 1s not for you 
to know the times and the seasons, which the Father hath put 
in H1s own power.’ ‘The kingdom will surely be restored to 
Israel. It will be restored with His return. What He had 
said before, that the time of His return is known to the 
Father only, He re-states here. How well it would have 
been if Christians had heeded these words of our Lord. The 
attempts to find out the time of His return have always 
been disastrous and have led to the discrediting of the pro- 
phetic Word. 

Then He ascended on high. They saw Him kent 
What a sight it must have been when He was received up 
into glory: Then a cloud took Him in. 

42 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 43 


It was not a common cloud, but the shekinah-glory- 
cloud, the garment which He so often used in the theophanies 
of olden times. The disciples stood there, evidently unable 
to take their eyes off the spot where He had disappeared. 
Were they so steadfastly gazing because they expected His 
return there and then? Two men in white apparel arrested 
their attention. 

They said ‘' Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up 
into heaven? This same Jesus, which 1s taken up from you 
into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him 
go into heaven” (Acts 1:11). The return in like manner with 
a cloud, and a literal return to the very spot from which 
He left, the Mount of Olives, must not be confounded (as 
it is often done) with the blessed hope. The coming promised 
here is His visible coming as revealed in the prophets and 
re-stated by Him in the Synoptics. The words spoken by 
these two men in white apparel confirm therefore His own 
words, as well as the prophecies of the Old Testament. It 
is not the coming for His Saints, but the coming with His 
Saints. See Zechariah xiv. 

We do not find the return of our Lord mentioned in the 
words spoken by Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, on the 
day of Pentecost. He witnessed to Christ crucified, buried, 
risen and ascended, seated at the right hand of God, demon- 
strated by the presence of the Holy Spirit, who had come 
from heaven to earth. But the better hope must have 
been brought to the hearts of all who believed and trusted 
on Christ. We read ‘'And all that believed were together, 
and had all things common, and sold their possessions and 
goods, and parted them to all, as every man had need” (Acts 
11:44,45). 

They were all Jews. The Jew clings tenaciously to the 
material things and expects the blessing of God to be ex- 


44 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


pressed in the increase of houses and lands. But here are 
Jews who gladly give up earthly things. They realized 
the better hope, the better inheritance, which the Spirit of 
God reveals more fully in the Epistles. 

Chapter 111:19 ‘‘Repent ye therefore, and be converted 
that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing 
shall come from the presence of the Lord, and He shall send 
Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you, whom the 
heavens must receive until the times of restitution of all things, 
which God hath spoken by the mouth of all H1s holy prophets 
since the world began.”” ‘The lame man at the temple gate 
had been miraculously healed, and Peter delivered to the 
gathered multitude his second address. After bearing wit- 
ness to the Person of Christ, that He was delivered by 
them into the hands of the Gentiles and that they had killed 
the Prince of life, whom God had raised from the dead, he 
called upon them to repent. Once more God spoke in mercy 
to Jerusalem to accept Him as their promised Messiah- 
King whom they had crucified. 

Peter declares that, if they turn to Him and repent of 
their evil deed, their sins would be blotted out and as a re- 
sult the times of refreshing would come from the presence 
of the Lord. Then the important statement is made that 
He, whom the heavens received, who had gone back to the 
Father, would be sent again. His coming again will result 
in the times of refreshing and the restitution of all things 
as promised by God’s holy prophets. The restitution of 
all things, or restoration, means the restored kingdom and 
all the blessings and glories which go along with it, accord- 
ing to the prophetic Word. They did not repent. The 
offer of mercy was rejected. But when the age ends a 
remnant of the same people will turn to the Lord and re- 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 45 


pent, and the promises made unto their fathers by the 
prophets will be accomplished. 

Chapter xv:13-18 “And after they held their peace, James 
answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me: Simeon 
hath declared how God at first did visit the Gentiles, to take out 
of them a people for His name. And to this agree the words of 
the prophets, as 1t 1s written, After this I will return, and will 
build again the tabernacle of David, which 1s fallen down, and I 
will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set 1t up: that the 
residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, 
upon whom my name 1s called, saith the Lord,who doeth all these 
things. Known unto God are all His works from the beginning 
of the world,” 

This great prophetic utterance was made during the first 
general church council and contains the important program 
of God concerning the work of the present age, and what will 
follow when it ends with the return of the Lord. 1. God 
visits the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His name. 
This is the great purpose of the present age. The Gospel is 
preached in all the world and through this preaching and 
the power of the Holy Spirit the gathering of the Church, 
the out-called company (the meaning of the Greek word 
ecclesia) takes place. This work must end some day and 
the body of Christ is then complete. 2. “After this I will 
return.” This is the testimony of all the prophets, a second 
advent. Christ comes back when the purpose of this age is 
realized, 3. The tabernacle of David will be built again, 
that is, the throne of David will be established, the kingdom 
will be restored to Israel. 4. Then all the Gentiles will seek 
after the Lord. This is world-conversion. The program 
ignored leads to confusion; the present day condition of 
Christendom bears witness to it. 


46 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


Apostolic preaching included the return of the Lord Jesus 
Christ. We learn this from Paul’s visit to Thessalonica. 
Paul spent a short time in that city, and preaching the Gospel 
an assembly was formed. From his first Epistle to the Thes- 
salonians we learn that they waited “‘for His Son from heaven, 
whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivereth 
us from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10). How could they 
wait for His return if Paul had not taught them this great 
Bible doctrine? We also learn from the second Epistle 
to the same Church that he had taught them orally the com- 
ing events in connection with His return. (See 2 Thess. 
ii:5). When opposition arose against the Thessalonians in 
their city, the Jews, with the town rabble, accused them that 
they do “contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there 
is another King, even Jesus.” By inference we gather from 
this that Paul had taught them the coming of the King 
(Acts xvii:7). 

Chapter xvi1:31 “Because He hath appointed a day, in the 
which He will judge the world 1n righteousness by that man 
whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance 
unto all, in that He hath raised Him from the dead.” Paul in 
speaking thus did not teach a universal judgment at the 
end of the world, but the setting up of a righteous govern- 
ment, vested in Him whom He raised from the dead. 


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CHAPTER IV 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD IN THE 
PAULINE EPISTLES 


The Epistle to the Romans 


The message of the Epistle to the Romans is the Gospel 
of Jesus Christ, the salvation which God has provided in the 
sacrificial death of His Son. This salvation is threefold, 
from the guilt of sin, from the power of sin and from the 
presence of sin. 

Chapter v:1, 2 “Therefore being justified by faith, we have 
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also 
we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and 
rejoice 1n hope of the glory of God.”” Three things accompany 
justification by faith. The first is peace with God through 
our Lord Jesus Christ. That peace was made in the blood 
of the cross; the believer enters into it by faith in Christ. 
There is a present blessing in that the justified believer has 
access by faith into this grace wherein he stands; then there 
is something which is future. It is the glory of God. This 
promised glory is the object of hope. In this hope of the 
glory of God, the believer rejoices at the present time; it 
enables him to glory, even in tribulation. What is the hope 
of the glory of God? It would be a very vague hope if 
Scripture did not define it. But Scripture tells us what it is. 
The hope of the glory of God,which is revealed in the Gospel, 
is to be like the risen Son of God, to share His inheritance and 
to be forever with the Lord. Other Epistles reveal this fully. 
But this hope of the glory of God is dependent on His return. 
If He does not return there will be no such glory for the child 
of God. His coming again will bring His own to the Father’s 
house and into the possession of all the promised glory. 

47 


48 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


In the eighth chapter we reach the summit of this Epistle 
and the salvation of God. There is no condemnation to them 
that are in Christ Jesus. The guilt and condemnation of our 
sins are forever gone; the believer is freed from the law of sin 
and death; sin has no more dominion over him. In this 
chapter we read of the future redemption, the salvation from 
the presence of sin, and of the glory of God, for which we 
wait. The body of the believer has the promise of redemp- 
tion. This we learn from the eleventh verse of this chapter, 
“But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead 
dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall 
also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth 
in you.” As we have shown in our work on the ‘Healing 
Question” is it not a promise that the believer’s body is to be 
immune from pain and sickness, but the passage teaches the 
future redemption of the believer’s body either by resurrec- 
tion, or by the sudden change when the Lord comes (1 Cor. 
xv1:51). 

The Apostle speaks next of the fact that believers are the 
~ children of God “and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and 
joint heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him, that 
we may be also glorified together.” But when does this 
glorification take place, when does the believer receive his 
inheritance, when does he begin to be the joint-heir with 
Christ? Certainly not at death. Death in the New Testa- 
ment is branded as an enemy. Nowhere in the Scriptures is 
the promise of glory and the glorification of the believer’s 
body linked with death, though it is true that to “depart 
and to be with Christ, is far better.” The glory of joint 
heirship with Christ does not come till Christ comes again. 

Chapter v1t:18-25 “For I reckon that the sufferings of thas 
present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which 
shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the 





THE RETURN OF THE LORD 49 


creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For 
the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by 
reason of Him who hath subjected the same in hope. Because 
the creature ttself also shall be delivered from the bondage of 
corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For 
we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain 
together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which 
have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within 
ourselves, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. 
For we are saved in hope; but hope that is seen 1s not hope. For 
what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for. But if we hope 
for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.” ‘This 
is a mighty revelation of the future glory. Paul teaches that 
the present time of suffering will be followed by glory which 
will be revealed. Then he speaks of creation and the crea- 
ture. The creature suffered on account of man’s sin; his fall 
dragged down creation; it is now subject to vanity. The 
whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together till 
now. But will this be the permanent condition of creation? 
Is it hopeless? If it were God would suffer defeat; He would 
be a defeated God. Full redemption demands the removal 
of the blight and the curse which rests now upon creation. 
Groaning creation will cease its groans. For that time of 
deliverance creation is waiting with earnest, longing expecta-~ 
tion. The divine promise is that ‘the creature itself shall 
be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the 
glorious liberty of the children of God.” It will come with 
“the manifestation of the sons of God” (verse 19). But the 
manifestation of the sons of God does not take place apart 
from His manifestation (Col. iii:4). And Christ is not mani- 
fested in a spiritual way, but His manifestation, His Appear- 
ing means in Scripture His personal return in glory. 


50 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


For this all creation is groaning and waiting. For this we 
wait, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, the members of 
His body, we wait for the promised redemption of the body, 
when we shall be like Him and see Him as He is. 

Chapter 0111:29, 30 “For whom He did foreknow, He also 
predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He 
might be the first born among many brethren. Moreover whom He 
did predestinate, them He also called, them He also justified, 
them He also glorified.” ‘This precious chain leads from 
eternity to eternity. He foreknew and predestinated those | 
who believe. He redeemed them by His Son, calling, justi- 
fying and glorifying them. All foreknown and predestinated 
are to be conformed to the image of His Son. He is the 
firstborn among many brethren, bringing many sons unto 
glory, (Heb. ii:10). But all is inseparably connected with 
His return. 

Chapter «1:25-27 “For I would not, brethren, that ye should 
be ignorant of this mystery: that blindness in part 1s happened 
to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all 
Israel shall be saved, as it 1s written, There shall come out of Sion 
a Delwerer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. For 
this 1s My covenant unto them, when I shall take away their — 
sins.’ 'This chapter in Romans contains a great dispensa- 
tional message, showing that God hath not cast away His 
| earthly people Israel, and that the present-day blindness is 
‘neither permanent nor total.* There is a hope of Israel, as 
there is a hope of the Church, and the Lord Jesus Christ is 
_ the hope for both, His earthly and His heavenly people. In — 
_ the passage we have quoted, Paul makes known a mystery. 
Blindness in part has happened to Israel, but that blindness 
has a limitation. It will be removed when the fulness of the — 
Gentiles has come in. As stated before, during the present — 


*See our book, ““The Jewish Question,” price 75 cents. 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD a1 


age there is a world-wide preaching of the Gospel for the 
gathering of the true Church. When the full number is 
reached, the fulness of the Gentiles will have come in, the 
true Church will be united to the Lord Jesus in glory. Then 
all Israel will be saved. It does not mean all Israel in the 
sense as taught by Russellism and other cults, that those 
who died in their sins will have another chance, but it means 
all those of Israel living in that day, who wait for Him, a 
believing remnant, as made known in different portions of the 
prophets. Their salvation will be accomplished by the com- 
ing of the Deliverer, the Lord Jesus Christ. His return will 
result in the salvation and restoration of the remnant of 
Israel. Then all the covenant blessings will be realized, (See 
Isa. lix:20, 21 and Zech. #xii:10). Apart from the coming of 
the Lord there is no hope for Israel. 

Chapter x10:10 “But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why 
dost thou set at naught thy brother? for we shall all stand before 
the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written, As I live, saith the 
Lord, every knee shall bow to Me and every tongue shall confess 
to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to 
God.”” Our Lord said “the Father judgeth no man, but hath 
committed all judgment to the Son” (John v:22). Here for 
the first time we read of the judgment seat of Christ. The 
judgment of which He speaks in Matt. xxv:31 is the 
judgment which he executes as the Son of Man, when He 
occupies the throne of His glory. The passage in Romans 
and others in the Epistles to the Corinthians do not 
speak of a judgment throne, but of a judgment seat. The 
judgment seat (Bema) is for His people; their works and 
service will be judged; some will be approved and others will 
be disapproved; some will receive a reward and others will 
receive none. ‘The question of eternal salvation is not con- 
nected with the judgment seat of Christ, for eternal salva- 


52.00) THEY RETURN) OFS THE: LORD 


tion is received and assured by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. 
But does the believer when he dies appear immediately before 
the judgment seat of Christ, or is the judgment seat in the 
future? The Apostle Paul answers this question. “Hence- 
forth is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the 
Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not 
to me only but unto all them also that love His appearing” 
(2 Tim. iv:8). That day, is the day of His appearing. 
Apart from His appearing there can be no judgment seat of 
Christ and no promised rewards. 


The First Epistle to the Corinthians 


The state of the Corinthian church is learned from this 
Epistle. They were carnal, worldly minded, they envied 
and had strife and divisions among themselves. (1 Cor. 
i1:3). They tolerated in their midst the grossest immorali- 
ties (1 Cor. v). The Spirit of God had to warn them to 
beware of fornication, which was so prevalent in Corinth. 
There were other evils also. The Apostle calls therefore their 
attention to the judgment seat of Christ, and speaks of it 
twice in the first Epistle and once in the second. 

Chapter 111:10-15 ‘For other foundation can no man lay 
than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man 
build upon this foundation id, silver, precious stones, wood, 
hay and stubble; every man’s work shall be made manifest; 
for the day shall declare it, because 1t shall be revealed by fire; 
and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If 
any man’s work abide which he has built thereupon, he shall 
recewe a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall 
suffer loss, but himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire.” With- 
out giving a full exposition of these verses we state briefly 
that the day which the Apostle mentions is the day of Christ, 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 53 


when He will judge His people. The fire of that day, the 
symbol of His holiness and righteousness, will consume all 
that is not of Him; then every man’s work will be tried. 
The believer’s foundation is Christ. 

Every one who rests upon this one foundation is saved 
forever. But the believer is to build upon this foundation. 
Some build upon it the things which are precious; others 
build nothing but wood, hay and stubble. Some will re- 
ceive a reward; others will see everything burned up, while 
they themselves are saved as by fire. 

Chapter iv:5 ‘‘Therefore, judge nothing before the time, 
until.the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden 
things of darkness, and will make mantfest the counsels of the 
hearts, and then shall every man have praise of God.” ‘This 
passage also refers us to the day of Christ and His judgment 
seat. The hidden things of darkness will then be brought 
to light, the counsels of the hearts will be laid bare. The 
spiritually minded believer does not need to vindicate him- 
self when misunderstood or misjudged; he can afford to 
wait till the Lord comes. Then in His presence every 
wrong will be righted and He will praise those who have done 
well. 

Chapter 01:2,3 ‘Do ye not know that the saints shall judge 
ERE OTE 6. ceticrncsn Know ye not that we shall judge angels? 

The Apostle reproved them for going before a heathen 
judge to have their grievances among themselves adjusted. 
He reminds them of their coming and promised glory. 
They are destined, with all other believers, to judge the world 
and even angels. But the judgment of the world, the nations 
and the angels in which believers participate, does not take 
place till He is manifested. 

Chapter «1:26 ‘‘For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink 
this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death, till He come.”?” The 


54 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


Apostle of the Gentiles was not in the upper room when our 
Lord instituted the memorial feast. The Lord therefore 
revealed it unto Him with the command to deliver this 
blessed ordinance to the Church. “For I have received it 
of the Lord, that which I also delivered unto you, that the 
Lord Jesus the night in which He was betrayed took bread; 
and when He had given thanks, He brake it, and said, ‘Take, 
eat; this is my body which is given for you, this do in re- 
membrance of Me. After the same manner also He took the 
cup, when He had supped, saying, This cup is the New 
Testament in My blood. This do, as oft as ye drink it, in 
remembrance of Me.” Whatever else Christendom has 
made out of the Lord’s supper is unscriptural. The memorial 
feast is only for true believers. As they gather on the Lord’s 
day at His table they remember His death, that He died 
for our sins according to the Scriptures; that He is risen 
from the dead and seated at the right hand of God as priest 
and advocate and that He is coming again. ‘Till He come 
we break the bread and take the cup, and when He comes 
again the blessed feast of remembrance passes away, for 
we shall see Him face to face. God’s people in the Old 
Testament had altars upon which sacrifices were brought. 
At these altars the Jewish believer looked back to the time 
when sin entered in, and looked forward to the coming of 
the better sacrifice and the better blood. In the New Testa- 
ment the believer has a table; he looks back to the cross, 
where the Lamb of God died, the true sacrifice was brought; 
he looks forward to the promised coming again and the 
promised glory. 

Chapter xv:22-25 ‘For as in Adam all die, even so tn 
Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own 
order; Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ’s 
at His coming. Then cometh the end, when He shall have 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 55 


delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when He 
shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. 
For He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His 
feet.” 

In the great resurrection chapter we find this definite 
Witness to the second coming of our Lord. Christ arose 
first from among the dead; He is called the first fruits; 
then comes the resurrection of those that are Christ’s at His 
coming. Here as elsewhere the truth is revealed, that the 
believer’s body will be raised from the grave. This is the 
first resurrection. It will take place at His coming. Some 
teach that not all believers will be raised when He comes 
for His saints; they claim that only a certain class will par- 
ticipate in the rapture, composed of those who have lived 
a consecrated life, and who attained a deeper experience 
or higher life, etc. 

All these fanciful inventions are scattered by the state- 
ment “they that are Christ’s at His coming.” All who be- 
long to Christ will be raised to glory. The weakest believer, 
the most ignorant and the youngest child of God is included, 
for it is not the matter of attainment, but of grace. Then 
after His coming, Christ will reign, till He hath put all enemies 
under His feet. 

Chapter xv:51-53 ‘*Behold, I shew you a mystery; we 
shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, 
in the twinkling of an eye, ab the last trump; for the trump 
shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and 
we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on tncor- 
ruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” 

This is one of the mysteries made known by the Apostle 
Paul. A “mystery” in the Word of God is a truth which 
was not made known before. The Apostle Paul was the 
instrument through whom the great mysteries of God not 


56 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


known in former ages have been revealed. In Romans 
xi:25 is revealed the mystery of Israel’s blindness and its 
limitation. In Ephesians the mystery of the Church, as 
the body and bride. of Christ, is revealed; and in 1 Cor. xv: 
51-53 and 1 Thess. iv:14-17 the translation of those who 
live at the close of the age. Inasmuch as 1 Thess. iv: 
14-18 was written before 1 Cor. xv:51-53, the latter passage 
is supplementary to that great revelation given through Paul 
in the first Epistle he penned by the Spirit of God. The 
mystery here is that there will be a generation of believers 
living who will not sleep,* that is, pass through death. 
They will be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an 
eye and not pass through the grave. This will be at the 
last trump, which is not the seventh trump of the book of 
Revelation. At the same time the dead in Christ will be 
raised incorruptible. Let it be noticed that the Apostle 
does not say “and they shall be changed,”’ but “‘we shall be 
changed.” Qur comment on 1 Thess. iv:14-18 deals with 
this blessed hope more fully. 

Chapter xv1:22 “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, 
let him be Anathema Maran-atha.” The words “Anathema 
Maran-atha” mean “Accursed the Lord cometh.” This is 
asolemn word. It shows that when the Lord returns, He 
will deal in judgment with the Christ rejectors. (2 Thess. 
1:8-9). 


The Second Epistle to the Corinthians 


Chapter 1:14“ As also ye have acknowledged us in part, that 
we are your rejoicing, even as ye also are ours in the day of the 
Lord Jesus.” ‘The day of the Lord Jesus, the day of Christ, 
is the day when His redeemed are gathered in His presence. 


*Sleep here, as elsewhere in the New Testament, means physical 
death. Scripture knows nothing whatever of the sleep of the soul. 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD - 57 


This day is an exclusively New Testament revelation. The 
day of the Lord ( Yom Jehovah), many times mentioned by 
the prophets, is the day of His visible manifestation, when He 
comes to deliver the remnant of His earthly people, deals in 
judgment with their enemies and receives the throne of His 
father David, to be the King of kings and the Lord of lords. 
The day of Christ concerns only the Saints of God, the day 
of the Lord concerns Israel and the nations. The day of 
Christ is ushered in by the rapture of the Saints, the fulfil- 
ment of 1 Cor. xv:51-53 and 1 Thess. iv:14-18; the day of the 
Lord is ushered in by His return in the cloud with power and 
great glory. Paul looked forward to the day of the Lord 
Jesus as a day of rejoicing. (See 1 Thess. ii:19). 

Chapter v:1-5 “For we know that 1f our earthly house of this 
tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house 
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we 
groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house 
which is from heaven, tf so be that being clothed we shall not be 
found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being 
burdened, not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, 
that mortality might be swallowed up of life. Now He that hath 
wrought us for the selfsame thing 1s God, who also hath given 
unto us the earnest of the Spirit.” ‘This passage is also closely 
related to 1 Cor. xi:51-53 and 1 Thess. iv:14-18. The believer 
knows that he possesses a house not made with hands, eternal 
in the heavens. While he is clothed with an earthly, frail 
tabernacle, this physical body of our humiliation, he groans 
and desires earnestly to be clothed upon with the house from 
heaven. He groans not to be unclothed, which means, to 
fall asleep and have the body put into a grave, but he groans 
for something better, to be clothed upon, that mortality 
might be swallowed up of life. To be clothed upon means not 
to pass through death, but to be “changed in a moment, in 


58 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


the twinkling of an eye.” The coming of the Lord will 
bring this about. 

Chapter 0:10 “For we must all appear before the judgment 
seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done tn his 
body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” 
Once more the Apostle speaks of the award seat of Christ, 
when the believer’s works will be judged. 


The Epistle to the Galatians 


This Epistle contains the inspired defense of the Gospel 
of Jesus Christ. The Galatians were falling from grace by 
going back under the law. False teachers were at work 
among them, teaching the use of the law as a means of justi- 
fication, and for a God-pleasing life and walk. In matchless 
divine logic it is proven “if righteousness comes by the law, 
then Christ is dead in vain” (Gal. ii:21). This perverted 
Gospel which the Galatians began to follow in the first cen- 
tury is also being taught and followed in the twentieth cen- 
tury. Ritualism is Galatianism. Seventh-Day Adventism 
is also a perverted system, which teaches a Gospel of works, 
Sabbath-keeping, and other evil doctrines. 

The Holy Spirit does not speak of “‘that blessed Hope” in 
this Epistle; there is only a hint as to that hope. Ritualism 
does not know anything about the blessed hope. For a 
ritualist, who prays that the Lord may incline his heart 
to keep the law, who does not know the assurance of eternal 
salvation by simple trust in Christ, the coming of the Lord 
is the Dies Irae, the day of wrath, and to be dreaded. Instead 
of rejoicing that the Lord is coming again, the ritualist 
trembles at the thought of His coming. Nor does the 
Seventh Day Adventist know anything of the blessed hope; 
he perverts the prophetic Word in such a way which robs the 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 59 


believer of the comfort of hope. The one passage in which 
the hope is mentioned is found in the fifth chapter. 

Chapter 0:4-5 “‘Christ is become of no effect unto you, whoso- 
ever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace. 
For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by 
faith.” The Christian who falls from grace, goes back under 
the law, believes as does the Sabbath Day keeper, that only 
those can be saved who keep the Seventh Day, the Jewish 
Sabbath, has no hope; but the believer who rests on grace, 
who is justified by faith, “who worketh not, but believeth on 
Him that justifieth the ungodly” (Rom. iv:5), waits for the 
hope of righteousness by faith, that is hope which the right- 
eousness by faith has promised; it is “the hope of the glory of 
God” for which he waits (Rom. v:2). 


The Epistle to the Ephesians 


‘This portion of the Word of God contains God’s highest and 
best revelation. ‘The masterpiece of God, the redemption of 
sinners, through Christ Jesus, is marvelously unfolded in this 
greatest of all the Pauline Epistles, (11:10), the depths of which 
no Saint has ever fathomed. The glory of the body of 
Christ, the Church, which is His fulness, is the special revel- 
ation of this document. Each member of that body is seen 
fully indentified with Christ. They are quickened with 
Christ, risen with Christ and seated in Christ in the heaven- 
lies, far above all principality and power and might and 
dominion. The destiny of that body is to be with Him, the 
glorified head. In the opening chapter the Apostle speaks 
of a coming dispensation, a future age. 

Chapter 1:9-11 “ Having made known unto us the mystery 
of His will, according to His good pleasure which He hath 
purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fulness of 


60 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


times He might gather together in one all things in the Christ, 
both which are in heaven, and which are in earth, evenin Him; 
in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predesti- 
nated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things 
after the counsel of His own will.” ‘The dispensation of the 
fulness of times follows the present dispensation; it will be 
the result of our Lord’s return. During the present dispen- 
sation we see not yet all things put under His feet, but when 
He comes back all things will be gathered in the Christ. 
Christ and His body will be united in glory and all will be 
gathered together in one. It is the blessed consummation 
in the kingdom to come. This is the inheritance which the 
grace of God has given to the redeemed. But this dispensa- 
tion of fulness will never dawn if there is no second coming 
of our Lord. 

In verse fourteen of the same chapter Paul writes of “the 
redemption of the purchased possession.”? ‘The purchased 
possession is that which is in the heavenlies. In creation 
God gave to man the earth—‘ the earth has He given to the 
children of men’? (Psalm cxv:16), but in redemption He 
gives the heavens and their glory. The heavenly spheres 
have also been contaminated by sin. Satan is still the prince 
of the power of the air; he has his abode there; his princi- 
palities and powers are in the heavenlies where the wicked 
spirits dwell (Eph. vi:12). That purchased possession will 
be redeemed by the power of God, when Christ comes again 
(See Rev. xii:7.12). 

Chapter 0:27 “ That He might present it to Himself a glorious 
Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that 
it should be holy and without blemish.’ In this section of the 
Epistle Paul speaks more particularly of the Church as the 
bride of Christ. The family relation is used to illustrate 
this truth. Husbands are to love their wives, as Christ 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 61 


loved the Church; wives are to submit themselves unto their 
husbands as a picture of how the Church is in submission to 
Christ. Three great facts as to Christ and the Church are 
brought to our attention. The first is past: ‘‘Christ loved 
the Church and gave Himself for it.””. The second concerns 
the present: “that He might sanctify it and cleanse it with 
the washing of water by the Word.” ‘The third is future, 
(verse 27). He is to present the Church to Himself a glorious 
Church. But that presentation is not now, nor can it be, 
till He comes and takes the Church to Himself in glory. 


The Epistle to the Philippians 


This Epistle is not a doctrinal Epistle but is of a practical 
character. It shows what true Christian experience is. The 
day of Christ and His coming as the goal of Christian experi- 
ence and as the Christian Hope are mentioned several times. 

_ Chapter 1:6 “‘ Being confident of this very thing, that He which 
hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of 
Jesus Christ.” He gives the assurance that the Lord Jesus 
Christ will not leave those who have accepted Him and in 
whom a good work is begun. The day of Jesus Christ as 
stated before, is His day in glory, when His own are gathered 
in His presence. 

Chapter 1:10“ That ye may approve things that are excellent, 
that ye may be sincere and without offence till the Day of Christ.’ 
This is the second mention of the same day of glory, which 
can only come with His coming to receive His own unto 
Himself. 

Chapter 11:16 “‘ Holding forth the Word of life; that I may 
rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither 
laboured in vain.” For the third time the day of Christ is 
before us. It is not without meaning that the Apostle in 


62 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


this Epistle of true Christian experience refers thrice to the 
coming face to face meeting in the day of Christ. Tolivethe 
life that pleases God means to live Christ. As revealed in 
this Epistle, He must be the object of our life (chapter 1); 
the same mind which was in Him, must be in us; He is our 
pattern (chapter ii). ‘To reach out constantly after the 
promised goal, the resurrection from among the dead, to 
prove worthy of the calling wherewith we are called, must be 
our daily ambitidn (chapter iii); to walk in faith and know 
that we can do all things through Christ will then be our 
daily experience (chapter iv). In such a devoted life the 
heart finds its greatest incentive to look forward to that day, 
when we shall see Him as He is. 

Chapter 111:20 “For our conversation 1s in heaven; from 
whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who 
shall change our body of humiliation, that it may be fashioned 
like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby 
He 1s able even to subdue all things unto Himself.” 'The word 
“conversation” in the Greek is the word “ Politeuma.”’ From 
this word we have our English word “‘politics.’? One might 
translate “‘our citizenship, or politics, are in heaven.’ ‘The 
true believer knows himself in Christ, and in Him, in the 
heavenlies. His gaze is upward. Christ in glory is His daily 
contemplation. He looks for Him from heaven. He expects 
Him as Saviour who will, when He comes, change the body of 
humiliation, the body in its earthly limitations, subject to 
pain, disease and death, and fashion it like unto His own 
glorious body. This is the believer’s hope and daily comfort. 


The Epistle to the Colossians 


The Epistle to the Colossians is the companion Epistle to 
Ephesians. In it is revealed the glory of the Lord Jesus 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 63 


Christ. His double headship in creation and in redemption 
is seen in the first chapter. By Him were all things created 
“and He is the head of the body, the Church, who is the be- 
ginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He 
might have the preeminence”’ (i:16-18). After this we read 
of His atoning work and the double results of this work. 
Chapter 1:20-22 “And having made peace in the blood of 
His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, by Him, 
I say, whether they be things 1n earth, or things in heaven. And 
you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind 
by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled, 1n the body of His 
flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and 
unreproveable in His sight.” The great work of redemption 
was accomplished by Him “‘in the blood of the cross.” There 
is mentioned a double reconciliation. The reconciliation of 
believing sinners who were once alienated and enemies by 
wicked works; this is accomplished throughout this Gospel- 
-age. The other reconciliation is future. It is the reconcilia- 
tion of all things in earth and in heaven. This reconciliation 
is the same as “‘the restitution of all things” preached by 
Peter (Acts iii:19-21). This reconciliation and restitution 
is predicted in the Old Testament. It will be realized in the 
age to come, when righteousness reigns, peace dwells on 
earth, when groaning creation no longer groans under the 
curse. It is unattainable during the present age and can 
only be accomplished by His return, for He paid for this 
glorious reconciliation on the cross, and when He comes to 
reign all things will be restored to Edenic conditions. Does 
this reconciliation include the unsaved, the unregenerated, 
who reject Christ and die in their sins? Does it include 
Satan and the fallen angels? Some, who call themselves 
*‘Reconciliationists” or “‘Restitutionists” teach this; so does 
the cult of the “International Bible Student Association” 


64 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


alias Russellism. The Scriptures do not teach such a uni- 
versal reconciliation, which includes the wicked dead and the 
wicked spirits. 

Chapter 111:1-4 “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those 
things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of 
God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the 
earth. For ye are dead, and your life 1s hid with Christ in 
God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall 
ye also appear with Him in glory.”’—Dead with Christ, risen 
with Christ, the believer’s life hid with Christ in God, these 
are the great cardinal truths of Christianity. If apprehended 
in faith they will lead the believer to seek the things which 
are above; the mind will be weaned away from the things 
which are on the earth. The things on the earth include 
what is mentioned in the previous chapter, such as the rudi- 
ments of the world, philosophy and words of vain deceit, 
legalism, ritualism, ordinances, as well as worldly ambitions, 
honors and pleasures. ‘Then the Apostle speaks of the future. 
A day is coming when the life, now hid with Christ in God, 
will be fully manifested. ‘‘When Christ is manifested who is 
our life, then shall ye also be manifested with Him in glory.” 
This manifestation of the redeemed comes when He is mani- 
fested, when He comes in power and great glory. The day 
*‘when He shall come to be glorified in His Saints, and to be 
admired in all them that believe in that day” (2 Thess. 1:10). 
It is not the day when He comes for His Saints, but the day 
of His visible and glorious return, the day in which He 
brings His many sons unto glory. 


The First Epistle to the Thessalonians 


This is the first Epistle the Apostle Paul wrote. It was 
written from Corinth about the year 52. In this Epistle we 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 65 


find the great revelation as to the coming of the Lord to re- 
ceive His Saints. Everything else in the Pauline Epistles, as 
to the coming of the Lord for His own, is connected with the 
revelation found in the fourth chapter of this Epistle. It 
seems the Epistle was mostly occasioned by the death of 
some of the Thessalonian believers; as they lacked more 
definite teaching as to the coming of the Lord and the first 
resurrection, they sorrowed like those who have no hope. To 
relieve their anxiety and uncertainty, and to give them the full 
light on the coming of the Lord in relation to those who are 
asleep and the future reunion with them, the Lord gave the 
unique and most blessed revelation as to this coming event. 

In the first chapter we find a description of the Thessa- 
lonian church. They possessed real Christianity, and at 
the close of this chapter we find in what their experience 
and Christian life consisted. 

Chapter 1:9,10 ‘*For they, themselves, report concerning us 
what manner of entrance we had unto you, and how ye turned 
to God from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to wait 
for His Son from heaven, whom He ratsed from among the 
dead, Jesus, who delivereth us from the wrath to come.” 

Here are the three great essentials of true Christianity. 
A true conversion in turning to God from idols; a true service 
and life for God which attest the genuineness of conversion; 
and the third a hopeful waiting for His Son from heaven. 
To believe in the coming of the Lord and to wait for it is 
therefore a vital part of Christianity. A sad testimony 
it is to the superficial knowledge of the Gospel, when men 
say, and teach, that the belief in the second coming of Christ 
is unessential and has no practical value. 

It is most essential and of the greatest value to the child 
of God. He is coming again, and with His coming He de- 
livereth us from coming wrath. 


66 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


Chapter 11:19,20 ‘For what 1s our hope, or crown of re- 
goicing. Are not even ye before our Lord Jesus Christ at 
His coming. For ye are our glory and joy.” He reminds 
them, as he did remind the Philippians and the Corinthian 
believers, that there will be a day of Christ, when they would 
meet in His presence in glory. Those who were saved 
through the preaching of the servant of Christ, nourished 
and built up in their most holy faith, will be the crown of 
joy and glorying of the servant of Christ. He speaks of the 
Thessalonians as his glory and joy in the day of Christ. 

Chapter 111:13 “To the end He may stablish your hearts 
unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the 
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His Saints.” This 
is the third time Paul writes in this Epistle of the coming 
of the Lord. Here it is His visible manifestation, when He 
comes with all His Saints. In view of this coming mani- 
festation in glory the Spirit of God urges to holiness, sO as 
to be unblameable before Him. 

Chapter 1v:13-18 “ But we do not wish you to be ignorant, 
brethren, concerning them that are fallen asleep, to the end 
that ye sorrow not, even as others who have no hope. For if we 
believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also God will bring 
with Him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus. 

“For this we say to you by the Word of the Lord, that we, the 
living, who remain to the coming of the Lord, shall not precede 
them who have fallen asleep; for the Lord Himself will descend 
from heaven with a shout (literally: an assembling shout), 
with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God; and 
the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we, the living, who re- 
main, shall be caught up together with them in clouds, to meet 
the Lord in. the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. 
Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” This is 
the great and unique revelation to which we have referred 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 67 


repeatedly in our previous pages. We remember here what 
our Lord said to the eleven disciples (John xiv:1-3). The 
details of this promise, to come again and to receive His 
own to Himself, remained unrevealed till the Apostle wrote 
this Epistle. Let us notice first the statement in verse 14 
‘For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also 
God will bring with Him those that have fallen asleep 
through Jesus.” The Apostle writes ‘‘Jesus died.”? Of the 
Saints it is written that they fall asleep; but never is it said 
that the Lord Jesus slept. He tasted death to the fullest 
as judgment upon sin. Those who have fallen asleep having 
believed on Christ will God bring with Him. It does not 
mean that He brings their disembodied spirits with Him to 
be united to their bodies from the graves, though this will 
be the case, but it means that those who have fallen asleep 
as to their physical bodies will God bring with His Son, 
when He comes with all His Saints, in that coming glorious 
manifestation. Their loved ones would be with Christ 
when He returns; and this assurance the sorrowing Thessa- 
lonians needed. But this assurance necessitated an ad- 
ditional revelation. How is it possible that they can come 
with Him? Are they coming as disembodied spirits? What 
about their bodies which were put into the graves? How 
shall they come with Him? 

In answer to these questions we read first that those who 
passed away will not have an inferior place when He comes, 
and that, we, who remain to the time of His coming, will 
not precede those who have fallen asleep. r 

Then follows the greatest of all revelations as to the man- 
ner of His coming. Nothing like it is found anywhere in 
the Old Testament. We know first of all that “the Lord 
Himself will descend from heaven.” He is now at the right 
hand of God in His glorified humanity. When the last 


68 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


member is added to His mystical body, the Church, when 
that body is complete, and the appointed time has come, 
He will leave the place at the right hand of the Father, and 
descend from heaven. He will not return to the earth at 
that time, but the air will be the meeting place, as we read 
later. When He comes with His Saints in His visible mani- 
festation, He will descend to the earth. When He comes 
to gather His Saints, He descends with a shout, the shout 
of power and supreme authority. The Greek word “ Kelus- 
ma’ used means the shout of the hero to his followers in bat- 
tie, by which they are gathered unto himself. 

That shout may be that beautiful word “Come,” the royal 
word of grace. ‘There will also be the voice of the archangel 
and the trump of God. The archangel Michael is the leader 
of the heavenly hosts. All heaven will be in commotion 
when the heirs of glory, sinners saved by grace, are about 
to be brought, fully glorified, into the Father’s house. 

The trump of God has nothing to do with the judgment 
trumpets in Revelation, nor with the Jewish feast of trumpets. 
It is a purely symbolical term, and like the shout, denotes 
the fact of gathering. In Numbers x:4 we read “‘and if they 
blow with one trumpet, then the princes, the heads of the 
thousands in Israel, shall gather themselves unto thee.” 
The shout and the trump of God will gather the fellow-heirs 
of Christ. “The dead in Christ shall rise first.” All Saints 
of all ages, Old and New Testament Saints, are included. 
This statement disproves the erroneous belief held in the 
greater part of Christendom, as to a general resurrection. 
There is first a resurrection of the righteous, and from the 
Book of Revelation we learn, that there will be a second 
resurrection, in which the rest of the dead, the wicked dead, ° 
will be raised. The resurrection of the dead in Christ will be 
accomplished first when He descends into the air. What 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 69 


power will then be manifested! Next all those who are living, 
at the time this shout is heard, will be caught up together 
with them in clouds to meet the Lord inthe air. It does not 
include the unsaved, professing church-members, but all 
who are Christ’s are included. The change will take place 
‘in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye” (1 Cor. xv:52). 
Then this mortal puts on immortality; it will be the being 
‘clothed upon” of which the Apostle testifies in 2 Cor. v:1-5. 
It is then that our body of humiliation will be fashioned like 
unto His glorious body. 

It will also bring the blessed reunion with our loved ones, 
who have gone before. Often the question is asked «shall 
we meet our loved ones again and shall we know them in 
glory?’ The blessed revelation before us gives the only 
definite answer in all Scripture. ‘‘Together with them” 
tells us of both, reunion and recognition. We shall surely 
find our loved ones at that time and enter with them upon an 
eternal conscious and glorious fellowship. ‘Those who deny 

this truth and revelation, that the Lord is coming for His 
Saints, rob themselves of all comfort and assurance as to 
those who have died in Christ. If the Lord Jesus Christ does 
not come back as revealed in this Scripture, there will be no 
resurrection and no reunion with our loved ones. 

Then we read that the clouds will be heaven’s chariots to 
take the joint heirs of Christ into His own presence at the 
appointed meeting place. “‘Caught up in clouds to meet the 
Lord in the air’’; all laws of nature will be set aside, for it is 
the power of God. The same power which raised Him from 
the dead and seated Him at His own right hand, will be dis- 
played in behalf of the redeemed (Eph. i:19-23) Surely 
this is divine revelation. No human mind could have ever 
invented such a scheme. How absolutely impossible for any 
man to have conceived that the Lord’s own should be caught 


70 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


up to meet Him in the air! It carries with it in its boldness 
and uniqueness, the assurance that it is the truth, and only 
to the natural mind, to the modernist with his darkening 
inventions, it appears foolishness. 

And the blessedness, ‘“‘to meet the Lord in the air’! Then 
we shall see Him as He is and look into His face of beauty 
and glory. And then we shall be transformed into His like- 
ness, for it is written ‘‘we shall be like Him.”? How long will 
the meeting in the air last? Some teach that it will be only 
momentary, and that the Lord will at once descend to the 
earth. We know from other Scriptures that this cannot be 
the case. Between the coming of the Lord for His Saints, 
and His coming with His Saints, there is an interval of at 
least seven years. The judgment seat of Christ must also 
first be set up, as well as the presentation of the Church in 
glory (Eph. v:27; Jude verse 24). After the judgment seat 
with the bestowal of rewards, He will take the Saints into 
the Father’s house, to behold His glory. (John xvii:22). 
But what will it be, “Forever with the Lord”’! 

Chapter v:1-4 “‘ But of the times and the seasons, brethren, 
ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know 
perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the 
night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden 
destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with 
child; and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not 
in darkness, that the day should overtake you as a thief.’ The 
Apostle writes now about “the day of the Lord” and no longer 
speaks of the coming of the Lord for His Saints and the day of 
Christ. The day of the Lord with its judgments, what pre- 
cedes that day, and what follows, is often described by the 
prophets. See Isaiah ii:12-22; Joel ii and iii; Zeph. i: 
14-18; Zech. xiv:1-9, etc. Whenever our Lord spoke of that 
day, He said “when the Son of Man cometh,” that is, 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 71 


His own visible and glorious manifestation. ‘That day will 
bring judgment for the world. (2 Thess. 1.) The world, 
and the world-church do not believe in such a day; they 
dream of peace and safety, of increasing prosperity and ex- 
pansion, of universal peace and a continued improvement of 
earthly conditions. Some day the Lord will come suddenly 
for His Church, and then the world with all its false optimism, 
false hope, false peace and safety, will suddenly have to face 
the judgment-tribulations which precede the day of the 
Lord. Because these judgments, and the times and seasons 
connected with that day, do not concern those who are the 
Lord’s, the Apostle states that there is no need to write to 
them about it. 


The Second Epistle to the Thessalonians 


The opening verses of the second chapter of this Epistle 
show that some one had troubled the Thessalonians, and 
tried to convince them, that the day of the Lord, with its 
threatened judgments, was actually present. They had 
received the first Epistle, which must have brought great 
joy to their hearts. There was on their part renewed wait- 
ing for His Son from heaven. A short time after false 
teachers came, telling them their hope was vain, inasmuch 
as the predicted tribulation had begun and that they would 
have to pass through all the horrors of the events, preceding 
His visible return. As they were then passing through 
persecutions and tribulations, these false teachers probably 
told them that their sufferings were the indications that the 
day of the Lord was upon them. It seems these false 
teachers had gone so far as to produce a document, which 
they pretended was a letter from the Apostle (ii:2), in which 
he seemingly confirmed their views. For this reason Paul 
attached his own signature to this second Epistle (iii:17). 


72 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


These teachers belonged undoubtedly to the same class of 
Judaizers who had sneaked in among the Galatian churches. 
They attacked the blessed hope given to the Church, and 
put in its place the judgment and tribulation of the day 
of the Lord. 

They put the Church back under the Law and taught that 
all which is in storefor the ungodly, before His return, would be 
shared by Christians. To answer this invention, which is still 
being taught, that the true Church must pass through the 
great tribulation, the Spirit of God inspired this second 
Epistle. It contains additional and important truths on 
the Lord’s return. 

Chapter 1:4-10 ‘‘So that we ourselves glory in you in the 
churches of God for your patience and faith in all your perse- 
cutions and tribulations that ye endure, which 1s a manifest 
token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted 
worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer; seeing 
wt 1s a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to 
them that trouble you, and to you who are troubled rest with 
us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with 
His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them 
that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord 
Jesus Christ. Who shall be punished with everlasting destruc- 
tion from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of Hts 
power, when He shall come to be glorified in His Saints, and 
to be admired 1n all them that believed, in that day (because our 
testimony among you was believed).” He quiets first of all 
their fears. The Apostle assures them, that all their persecu- 
tions and tribulations, far from having a punitive character, 
were ‘“‘a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God,” 
with this purpose in view, that they might be “counted 
worthy of the Kingdom of God” for the sake of which they 
suffered. ‘They suffered with Him, so that they might also 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 73 


be glorified together. (Rom. viii:17). And then the con- 
trast. When the day of the Lord comes it will bring the 
punishment of the ungodly. The ungodly were now troub- 
ling them, but when that day comes the ungodly would be 
troubled, while the troubles of the Saints of God cease for 
ever, and rest and glory will be their lot. The day of the 
Lord therefore had not yet come. That day will bring 
the visible manifestation of the Lord, in flaming fire with 
His mighty angels, and judgment will fall upon the ungodly. 

Two classes are especially mentioned. ‘Those that know 
not God, which means the Gentiles, as well as sinners in 
general, and “those that obey not the Gospel of our Lord 
Jesus Christ.” These are the Jews and nominal, apostate 
Christians. The latter class will suffer the greater punish- 
ment. But when He comes in judgment upon the ungodly, 
in that day, He will also be glorified and admired in all them 
that believed. When He comes in power and glory back 
to earth again, His Saints, the true Church, will no longer 
_beontheearth. The Church, previously caught up in clouds, 
will come with Him in glory. The time of the manifesta- 
tion of the sons of God has come (Rom. viii:19). All are 
transformed into His image, each member of His body re- 
flects His glory. And so the afflicted and despised Thes- 
salonians will then be glorified when He appears. And 
this is the glorious future of all the redeemed. 

Chapter i1:1-12. (Corrected translation) “ Now we beg 
you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our 
gathering together unto Him, that ye be not soon shaken in 
mind, nor troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter, 
as if it were by us, as that the day of the Lord 1s present. 

“Let not any one deceive you in any manner, because it will 
not be unless the apostasy has come first, and the man of sin 
has been revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts 


74 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


himself on high, against all called God, or object of worship; 
so that he himself sits down in the temple of God showing him- 
self that he is God. Do ye not remember that, being yet with 
you, I said these things to you. And now ye know that which 
restrains, that he should be revealed in his own time. For the 
mystery of Lawlessness already works; only there 1s He who re- 
strains until He be gone, and then the lawless one shall be revealed, 
whom the Lord shall consume with the breath of His mouth, 
and shall annul by the brightness of H1s coming; whose coming 
is according to the working of Satan in all power, and signs, 
and wonders of falsehood, and in all deceit of unrighteous- 
ness to them that perish, because they have not received the love 
of the truth, that they might be saved. 

And for this reason God sendeth them an energy of error, 
that they may believe the lie: that they all might be judged who 
believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” 

We find here an additional information as to the coming 
day of the Lord (not the day of Christ as stated by the au- 
thorized version). ‘That day cannot come unless two con- 
ditions are fulfilled. ‘There must be first the apostasy, the 
falling away from the truth, and the man of sin, the son 
perdition must also be revealed. Both these conditions 
were mentioned before in the Word of God. The Lord 
spoke of the moral conditions during the end of the age, 
and predicted the false Christs, which should come. The 
Old Testament prophetic Word also speaks of these things. 
When Paul was with them he had taught these things; he 
reminds them of his oral ministry. 

In view of these conditions it has been said by some, how 
could the early Christians believe in and wait for the im- 
minent coming of the Lord? There was then no sign of 
apostasy nor the revelation of the man of sin. But the 
Apostle wrote also “the mystery of lawlessness already 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 75 


works.”? Even in Apostolic times, a falling away began. 
Such a falling away has gone on throughout this age, but 
when it closes, the age culminates in the apostasy, head- 
ing up in the final, personal Anti-christ, the man of sin 
and the son of perdition. Throughout this age believers 
could see the mystery of lawlessness at work in every gen- 
eration and thus could wait for the coming of the Lord as 
an event near, and not in the distant future. 

Who is the man of sin? —The Roman Emperor, Nero and 
other emperors, Mohammed, the Pope and the Papacy, the 
French Revolution, Napoleon I and others have been men- 
tioned as the predicted man of sin. The most common in- 
terpretation and most widely accepted view makes the Pa- 
pacy the Anti-christ. But this is incorrect, for the Papacy 
does not deny that Jesus is the Christ, nor does the Pope 
claim to be Christ. That the Papacy has certain marks 
of Anti-christianity cannot be denied. Recently certain 
Catholic writers have charged Modernism, which denies 
the Virgin-birth and the Deity of Christ, with being Babylon 
and an Anti-christ. With this we are in fullest agreement. 

As John tells us there have been and are many Anti- 
christs; and never so many as today. Christian Science, 
Theosophy, Mormonism Russellism, Modernism, Destruc- 
tive Criticism, New Thoughtism, the Unity Movement of 
Kansas City and similar cults are Anti-christian. But 
Paul speaks here of the final Anti-christ, the heading up of 
the apostasy, which in its completeness is still unreached. 

When he appears he will be the leader of God opposition 
and Christ defiance. He poseth and exalteth himself 
against all that is called God. He takes the place of God 
on earth and demands worship. He will be Satan’s man 
and Satan’s masterpiece. We find his picture in Daniel 
x1:36-39 and in Rev. xiii:11-18. In Revelation he is called 


76 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


“the false prophet.” He is the one of whom our Lord speaks 
in John v:43. 

“‘He sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth 
that he is God.” The temple of God does not mean the 
Church. It is a Jewish temple. When the true Church is 
gone from the earth, the Jewish people, partially restored 
to their own land in unbelief, will erect another temple and 
institute once more the ancient temple worship. (Isaiah 
Ixvi:1-4). God will despise their worship. Then, during the 
great tribulation the man of sin will appear, claiming to be 
the true Messiah, doing lying signs and wonders, by which 
he will deceive the Jews and also the Gentiles. He takes 
his place in that temple. He will undoubtedly be a Jew, 
for the Jews would not receive a Gentile as their Messiah. 
The present day rehabilitation of the Jews in Palestine, 
their eagerness to have a temple, a universal house of wor- 
ship, all without faith in God and with their hatred against 
the Christ of God, shows how very near all these predicted 
events are. The ever increasing apostasy of Modernism 
in the professing church is the shadow of the soon coming 
great apostasy. 

But who keeps back the full revelation of the mystery 
of lawlessness? Who is He that restrains? (Verses 5-8). 
Many answers have been given to this question. It is evi- 
dent that that which restraineth must be a power superior 
to man and Satan, and of a nature totally different to the 
man of sin and his work. The restraining power is a person. 
It is the Holy Spirit of God. When the Church is taken 
up to meet the Lord in the air, this restraining person, the 
Holy Spirit, who dwells in the body of Christ, the Church, 
will be taken out of the way. His restraining influences 
will cease. 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 77 


God will then permit everything to rush into the apostasy 
and, in due time, the lawless one will be revealed, accepted 
by all who did not receive the love of the truth. 


The First Epistle to Timothy 


The two Epistles to Timothy and the one to Titus are 
generally called the pastoral Epistles, because they are ad- 
dressed to these two servants of Christ, who had been put 
in charge of important churches. Timothy ministered 
in Ephesus and Titus in Crete. The purpose of the first 
Epistle to Timothy is stated in Chapter iii:14,15. In the 
first Epistle the Church is seen as the House of God; in the 
second Epistle the House of God is anticipated in its failure 
and disorder. Both Epistles, especially the second Epistle, 
give solemn prophetic warnings as to the closing of the age 
and the inrushing apostasy. These warnings must be con- 
nected with the warnings our Lord gave and with what we 
have learned from the second chapter in the ia 
Epistle, to the Thessalonians. 

Chapter 1:1 “ Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in 
the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to 
seducing spirits, and doctrines of demons.” It is a prophetic 
warning. Inasmuch as the true faith revealed in the in- 
fallible, inerrant Word of God, is the foundation upon 
which everything rests, Satan aims at that first of all. He 
does so today in Modernism and the New Theology. ‘Then 
when the true faith is given up, the master-mind of the 
enemy brings in the false doctrines, the fables of seduc- 
ing spirits and demons. 

Only one direct mention is made in this Epistle of the 
appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. He exhorted Timothy 


78 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


to “keep this commandment without spot, unrebukable, 
unto the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ” (vi:14). 


The Second Epistle to Timothy 


In this Epistle Timothy is repeatedly exhorted to hold 
fast the form of sound doctrine. It was probably the last 
Epistle the prisoner of the Lord wrote and in its prophetic 
testimony we find the most solemn warnings as to our own 
times. Here the moral and religious conditions of profes- 
sing Christendom are faithfully and minutely pictured. 
In the first chapter, the Apostle gives his own testimony. 
“For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that 
He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him 
against that day.”? ‘This is followed by the first exhortation. 
(Verses 13,14). 

Chapter t11:1-5 ‘*This know also, that in the last days peril- 
ous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of themselves, 
lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to 
parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, false 
accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, 
traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasure more than 
lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the 
power thereof; from such turn away.”? Such are the predicted 
religious conditions which will hold sway during the last 
days, not in the ungodly world, but among the ungodly 
masses of professing Christians, who have an outward pro- 
fession, the form of godliness, but deny the power. Here we 
see the fruits of the present day modernism, which denies 
the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. These conditions 
the returning Lord will find on earth. 

Chapter 1v:1-4 **I charge thee before God, and the Lord 
Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at Hts 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 79 


appearing and His kingdom; Preach the Word, be instant 
in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long 
_ suffering and doctrine. For the time will come, when they 
will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall 
they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they 
shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned 
unto fables.” ‘This is the last, and the most solemn exhor- 
tation, Paul wrote to his son Timothy. With the coming 
of the Lord before his heart, he charges him to preach the 
Word at all times. The blessed hope gives energy to con- 
tinue in the faithful ministry of the Truth of God. What 
the Apostle beheld here and penned by the Holy Spirit 
nineteen hundred years ago has come to pass. Sound 
doctrine is no longer endured. The outcry is against the 
dogma, the form of sound words. 

Away with the faith of our fathers! Away with the be- 
lief in the Bible as the infallible Word of God! Away with 
the belief that Christ is the Virgin-born Son of God! This 
is followed by belief in fables, such as the evolution fable. 
These conditions which are now with us will lead on towards 
that complete apostasy of which Paul speaks in 2 Thess. ii 
and in the manifestation of the man of sin. 

Chapter 1v:6-9 *‘For I am now ready tobe offered, and the time 
of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have 
finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there 
1s laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the 
righteous Judge, shall give me at that day, and not to me only, 
but unio all them that love His appearing.” The martyr’s 
death loomed up before the prisoner of the Lord when he 
wrote these most blessed words. 

The correct translation of the first sentence is ‘For I am 
already being offered,” that is, his heart contemplated in 
joyful anticipation, the hour when he would depart and be 


80 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


with Christ. He knows there is laid up for him a crown of 
righteousness. He does not say that he will receive this 
crown immediately upon his departure, but that He will 
receive it from the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ, the 
righteous Judge, in that day, when he and all the Saints 
will appear before the judgment seat of Christ. What a 
crown he will receive in the day of Christ! And the crown 
of righteousness is here also promised to all who love His 
appearing. This means more than loving the truth of the 
coming of the Lord. If we love His appearing, we shall 
‘ also walk in separation from the world, and, like the Apostle, 
fight the good fight and keep the faith. Again we say, how 
meaningless all this would be if Christ did not come back. 


The Epistle to Titus 


In this Epistle, addressed to Titus, a Greek convert of the 
Apostle Paul (Tit. i:4:Gal.iii:3), we find but one reference 
to our Lord’s return. 

Chapter 11:11-13 *‘For the grace of God, bringing salvation 
for all men, hath appeared, teaching us that, denying ungodli- 
ness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and 
godly 1n the present age, awaiting the blessed hope and appear- 
ing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ, who 
gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniqutty, 
and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good 
works.” 

This is a comprehensive statement of the Gospel and true 
Christianity. The grace of God appeared in the Son of 
God, our Lord. This grace comes to man bringing salva- 
tion, offering salvation to all men, because Christ died for 
our sins. ‘The same grace teaches how to live and walk in 
the present age, and supplies the power fora sober, righteous 

Me 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 81 


and godly life. Then we read of the blessed hope and the ap- 
pearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus 
Christ. He is coming again for His Saints; this is the blessed 
hope; He will appear in glory; this is His visible manifesta- 
tion, when we shall be manifested with Him in glory. This 
hope is seen once more as an incentive for a holy life. These 
things Titus was to speak with all authority. 


The Epistle to the Hebrews 


In the first chapter of this Epistle the Holy Spirit reveals 
Christ in His exaltation at the right hand of God. After 
He made purification of sins, He was constituted heir of all 
things, being made so much better than the angels, as He 
hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than 
they. This fact is attested by the Old Testament prophetic 
Word. The Spirit of God uses the Book of Psalms and 
quotes from seven Psalms. ‘These Psalms reveal His match- 
less person, and in several of them His glory, dependent on 
a future manifestation, is predicted. The second Psalm, 
which is quoted, reveals the fact that some day He will be 
enthroned as King upon the holy hill of Zion and receive 
the nations for His inheritance, over whom He will rule. 
The next Psalm quoted is the eighty ninth, here we find the 
promise “I will make Him my Firstborn (as risen from the 
dead), higher than the kings of the earth.” The forty fifth 
Psalm, mentioned in verses 8 and 9, speaks prophetically of 
His future throne, and the one hundred and tenth Psalm 
tells us that His place at the right hand of God is occupied 
by Him till God makes His enemies the footstool of His feet. 
Then He will receive His kingly rights and judge the nations. 
All these prophetic Psalms can only be fulfilled with His 
return. 


82 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


Chapter 11:6-10 ‘*But one in a certain place testified, saying, 
What 1s man that Thou art mindful of him? or the son of man 
that Thou visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower than the 
angels, Thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst 
set him over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things 
in subjection under His feet. For in that He put all in sub- 
jection under Him, He left nothing that is not put under Him. 
But now we see not yet all things put under Him. But we see 
Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suf- 
fering of death, crowned with glory and honour, that He by 
the grace of God should taste death for everything. For it be- 
came Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all 
things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain 
of their salvation perfect through suffering.” 

The eighth Psalm is quoted and we learn that the second 
Man, the last Adam, our Lord Jesus Christ, is the One under 
whose feet all things are to be put into subjection. He was 
made a little lower than the angels; He suffered on the cross 
and is now exalted at the right hand of God. As we learned 
from other Scriptures (see 1 Cor. xv:22-27) all things will be 
put under His feet, not through the work of the Church, but 
on the day of His return. 

Chapter ix:28 “Christ was offered once to bear the sins of 
many; and unto them that look for Him shall’ He appear the 
second time, without sin, unto salvation.” ‘The context states 
three appearings of Christ. He appeared once in the end 
of the world (that is, age, the Jewish age) to put away sin 
by the sacrifice of Himself. This is His first coming to suf- 
fer and to die. 

He appears now in the presence of God for us, as our high 
priest. This appearing is unseen by human eyes. Then 
as surely as He appeared once on earth to die, so He will 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 83 


appear a second time unto salvation to them that look for 
Him. There is then a “second coming” or “‘appearing.” 

What does it mean “‘unto them that look for Him”? Some 
teach that He comes and takes unto Himself only those 
Christians who actually wait for Him and look for Him. 
They teach that all others will be left behind to go through 
the great tribulation. Scripture does not teach any such 
thing. All true believers believe in a return of our Lord. 
It is the universal belief of all Christians. If any man 
denies that He is ever coming again in person, as He promised 
and as the Holy Spirit so abundantly testifies through His 
Apostles, that man can hardly be called a true believer. All 
true believers look for Him at some time. ‘To share in the 
glory promised with His coming is not the question of belief 
in the mode and manner of His coming, but it is solely the 
question of being born again and belonging to Christ. “All 
who are Christ’s at His coming’”’ will share in that future 
salvation and glory. (1 Cor.xv:23) Countless thousands 
‘of Christians died, who knew nothing of His coming, as we 
know it. Yet they will all be raised when He comes, not 
because they had a scriptural creed about His coming, but 
because they belong to Christ and are members of His body. 
But there is a more positive interpretation which we must not 
overlook. The Epistle was addressed to believing Hebrews. 

When the age ends, as we have seen before in this volume, 
a Jewish believing remnant will be on the earth, waiting for 
Him and His visible manifestation. ‘Those who wait for 
Him during the tribulation will be delivered when He comes. 
He appears unto them particularly “‘unto salvation.” 

Chapter x:25 ‘* Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves 
together, as the manner of some 1s, but exhorting one another, 
and so much the more as you see the day approaching.” The 
day mentioned, is the day of His return. 


84 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


That day is approaching throughout this age. Each 
generation can say “the night is far spent, the day is at hand” 
(Rom. xiii:12). 

Verse 37 “For yet a little while, and He that shall come will 
come, and will not tarry.” ‘This is a partial quotation of 
Hab.ii: 3-4. With God an age of almost two thousand years 
is. but a little while. But the;emphasis is upon the fact that 
He will come and will not tarry. 


CHAPTER V 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD IN THE GENERAL 
EPISTLES 


The Epistle of James 


The Epistle of James, addressed to the twelve tribes scat- 
tered abroad, is the earliest Epistle, having been written 
about the year 45 A. D. 

It has partially a prophetic character, inasmuch as we > 
find exhortations as to the last days. The believing Israelites 
to whom this Epistle was first of all addressed stand pro- 
phetically for the believing remnant of the end of the age. 
The conditions prevailing during this coming period of time 
are once more described. 

Chapter v:1-6 “‘Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for 

your miseries shall come upon you. Your riches are cor- 
rupted, and your garments motheaten. 
Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall 
be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as tt were 
fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Be- 
hold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your 
fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth, and the cries 
of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord 
of Sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been 
wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. 
Ye have condemned and killed the just, and he doth not resist 
you.’? One can easily see how these words are applicable 
to the very end of the age, when oppression rules, and the 
just are persecuted and killed. When that day comes the 
rich may well howl and weep. 

Verses 7-8 ‘Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming 
of the Lord. 

85 


86 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


Behold, the husbandman waitteth for the precious fruit of 
the earth, and hath long patience for 1t, until he receive the early 
and latter rain. Be. ye also patient, stablish your hearts, for 
the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” 

While this exhoration has a special meaning for those be- 
lieving Jews living during the great tribulation, it also has a 
message for all true believers. 

When we remember the coming day of our gathering to- 
gether unto Him, the day in which all will be manifested in 
His presence, and the day when we shall appear with Him 
in glory, we toa shall be patient now in our tribulations 
and trials. 


The First Epistle of Peter 


This Epistle is addressed “to the strangers scattered 
throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia.” 
They were not Gentiles, but the Jewish believers, who were 
scattered as strangers in those provinces among the Gentiles. 
In writing to them Peter carried out the commission given to 
him by the Lord to strengthen his brethren. They were 
passing through much suffering. ‘They had fiery trials and 
many persecutions. He reminds them at once of the better 
inheritance they had obtained, the inheritance which is to 
be revealed and possessed in the last time. 

Chapter i:3-7 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath 
begotien us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus 
Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and un- 
defiled, that fadeth not away, reserved 1n heaven for you, who 
are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready 
to be revealed in the last time. Wherein ye greatly rejoice, 
though now for a season, if need be, ye are 1n heaviness through 
mantfold temptations, that the trial of your faith, being much 


eS a 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 87 


more precious than gold that perisheth, though it be tried with 
fire, might be found unto praise and honour, and glory at the 
appearing of Jesus Christ.” As Jews they had the promise 
of an earthly inheritance. The godly in Israel looked for 
the day when the promise made to Abraham should be 
realized, and they would inherit, under the reign of the 
Messiah, the land. As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, 
their Messiah and Saviour, they had received an inheritance 
reserved, not on earth, but in heaven. That inheritance is 
the Father’s house, the glory where He is. It is the future 
salvation, the complete redemption, the fulness of glory, 
to be revealed in the last time. 

That time is the day of His manifestation. In that day 
of His appearing all their trials and persecutions would turn 
out unto praise and honour and glory. What an incentive 
to suffer in meekness and in patience! 

In the next place Peter speaks of the testimony of the Old 
Testament prophets. The Spirit of Christ testified through 
them concerning the sufferings that are in Christ, and the 
glory that should follow. (Verse 11). 

he things they announced which angels desired to look 
nto, the Gospel, is now preached with the Holy Spirit sent 
down from heaven. (Verse 12). Then follows in verse 13 
another mention of the revelation of Christ. 

“Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and 
ope to the end for the grace that 1s to be brought unto you at 
the revelation of Jesus Christ.” The revelation, the 4 poka- 
iu.psis, is the full revelation of His glory in the day of His vis- 
ibic manifestation. In that day when He appears we shall 
appear with Him in glory, and grace will be consummated. 

Chapter 10:13 ‘*But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers 
of Christ’s sufferings; that when His glory shall be revealed, 
ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.” ‘The Holy Spirit 


88 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


comforts those who suffered, being partakers of Christ’s 
suffering, with the coming glory, when His glory will be 
revealed. The more suffering now, the greater the joy in 
the day of His revelation. 

Chapter 0:4 ‘And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, 
ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.” ‘The 
Lord Jesus spoke of Himself as the good shepherd, who 
gives His life for the sheep. Paul in the last chapter of 
Hebrews calls Him the great shepherd, risen from the dead. 
Peter speaks of Him as the chief shepherd. He will be 
manifested in this character at His return. Then the true 
servant will receive from His hands the crown of glory. 
Thus Peter witnesses, as Paul did, and as the Lord said, 
that there will be no rewards for service given, till He comes. 


The Second Epistle of Peter 


This second Epistle has a decided prophetic character. 
Peter was now an old man. The Lord had told him at the 
lake of Tiberias that he would be crucified, when an old 
man. (John xxi). He knew therefore that he must soon 
put off his tabernacle. Then he speaks first of all of the 
transfiguration as revealing the, power and coming of our 
Lord Jesus Christ. (See comment on Matthew xvi:27-28). 
That glorious event, foreshadowing His return, makes the Old 
Testament prophetic Word more sure (i:19). After these 
statements Peter speaks of the importance of the prophetic 
Word and how it came into existence, “‘ holy men of God spake 
as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” 

In the second chapter he bears a witness as to the condi- 
tions of professing Christendom when this present age closes. 
This chapter reads like the Epistle of Jude, though there 
are many differences. Peter did not copy from Jude, nor 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 89 


did Jude copy from Peter, but both bear an independent 
witness given by the Spirit of God as to the coming apostasy. 
All harmonizes with what the Lord said as to the close of 
the age and what the Holy Spirit witnessed through the 
Apostle Paul. 

The third chapter is entirely prophetic and in its revela- 
tions leads us forward towards the new heaven and the new 
earth. 

Chapter i11:3-4 ‘Knowing this first, that there shall come 
in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and 
saying, Where 1s the promise of His coming? for since the 
fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the 
beginning of the creation.”” According to Peter’s prophecy 
the blessed hope will be ridiculed and scoffed at in the last 
days. It is so today. The Spirit of God evidently has in 
mind the evolution theory, which is so very prominent in 
these days. Things continue as they were and a catastrophic 
ending of this age is put down as unbelievable, and those 
who believe that there are such things coming, as predicted 
in connection with the Lord’s return, are branded as fanatics. 
Then the Spirit of God shows up their willing ignorance. 
Geology shows to them, who do not believe the Bible, that 
this globe had a catastrophic period in the past when “the 
earth that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.” 

Then he continues: 

Chapter 111:7-10 ‘‘But the heavens and the earth, which are 
now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire, 
against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. 
But beloved, be not tgnorant of this one thing, that one day 1s 
with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as 
one day. The Lord 1s not slack concerning His promise, as 
some men count slackness, but 15 long-suffering to us-ward, 
not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to 


90 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in 
the night, 1n the which the heavens shall pass away with a 
great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the 
earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” 

Peter predicts that the day will come when the earth 
will be burned up, when the heavens will be passing away 
with a great noise and all will melt with a fervent heat. 
Leading astronomers tell us that they have discovered that 
some of the stars in the heaven burn up now and then, and 
that such a conflagration is in store for our globe, and the 
surrounding heavens. Peter was not an astronomer; he 
had not a telescope nora spectroscope, yet he penned that 
which painstaking astronomy has but recently discovered. 
It is one of the evidences of supernatural inspiration and 
revelation. 

But of what day does Peter speak here? The twelfth 
verse mentions the day of God, wherein the heavens being 
on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with 
fervent heat. In the seventh verse we read of the day of 
judgment and perdition of ungodly men. It is not the day 
of the Lord, when He comes back to earth again to begin | 
His kingly reign, but it is the end of that day, which lasts 
for a thousand years and which ushers in the day of God, 
when God will be all in all. (1 Cor. xv:28). That great 
coming “‘ Day of the Lord,”’ His reign upon and over the earth, 
when all things will be put under His feet, has a fiery be- 
ginning and a fiery ending. When His thousand year reign 
ends, the judgment of ungodly men will take place, recorded 
in Rev. xx:11-15. The great conflagration of which Peter 
speaks takes place then, when once more that day comes 
like a thief in the night, after the earth has had her great 
millennium. After that follows the new heavens and the 
new earth (verse 13), just as we read in Revelation xxi, fol- 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 91 


lowing the passing away of the heaven and earth as they are 
now, and the great white throne judgment; ‘“‘And I saw a 
new heaven and a new earth.” 


The First Epistle of John 


The first Epistle of John has been called “a family letter.” 
It concerns only the children of God, those who enter the 
family of God by the new birth. The blessed hope is men- 
tioned prominently in this Epistle. We quote the two 
passages. 

Chapter 11:28 *‘And now little children, abide in Him, 
that when He shall appear, we may have confidence, and not 
be ashamed before Him at His coming.” 

The beloved disciple addresses the members of the family of 
God as little children and exhorts them to abide in Christ. 
The day is coming when He willappear, and John, as a teacher 
and Apostle, knows that in that day he and other servants 
of Christ will have confidence, joy and glory, in His presence, 
if those to whom they ministered abided faithfully; if not, 
they would be ashamed before Him at His coming. (See 
1 Thess. ii:19). 

Chapter iti:1-3 “Behold, what manner of love the Father 
hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children 
of God; therefore the world knoweth us not, because 1t knew 
Him not. Beloved, now are we the children of God, and 1t 
doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that, when 
He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him 
as Heis. And every man that hath this hope in Him puri- 
freth himself, even as He is pure.” 

These are beautiful words. But those who do not believe 
in the literal return of the Lord cannot claim them, nor 
can they tell us how the promise given can ever be realized 
apart from His coming again. 


92 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


In Christ, the unspeakable gift of the Father’s love, we 
are called the children of God. As Paul wrote in Romans 
(Chapter viii) “if children then heirs, heirs of God and fel- 
low-heirs with Christ.””> What we shall be has not yet ap- 
peared. It is still a blessed secret with the Father. But 
we know one thing “we shall be like Him.” This is the hope 
of the calling of God. 

We shall be transformed into the same image; our bodies 
of humiliation will be changed and become like unto His 
own glorious body. But when? 

When He shall appear. And if He does not appear we 
have no hope that such a glorious transformation will ever 
take place. This hope which we have has in it the power 
of purification. It is a separating hope. He who believes 
in it with his heart will not love the world and the things 
which are in the world, but will love Him and His appearing. 


The Epistle of Jude 


This Epistle, like the second chapter in Peter’s second 
Epistle, predicts the moral and religious conditions of 
Christendom at the close of this age. Jude writes of some- 
thing which we do not find in the Epistle of Peter. 

Verses 14 and 15.‘‘And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, 
prophesied of these, saying, Behold the Lord cometh with ten 
thousands of His Saints, to execute gudgment upon all, and to 
convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly 
deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard 
speeches, which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.” 

From Genesis v we learn that Enoch walked with God for 
three hundred years. Then God took him. In what this con- 
sisted we find recorded in Hebrews xi. ‘‘ By faith was Enoch 
translated that he should not see death; and was not found 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 93 


because God had translated him, for before his translation he 
had this testimony, that he pleased God.” And here we 
have additional information. 

He was a prophet. He prophesied of the coming of the 
Lord in judgment. 

It was at the close of an age, when darkness and violence 
began to spread over the human race, before the days of 
Noah, the end of that age, were reached. He heralded the 
coming of the Lord and as a result the ungodly spoke against 
him. Can we expect anything better from the ungodly 
world and the ungodly professing church, at the close of the 
present age? | 

Enoch is abruptly introduced in this little Epistle for a 
purpose. He is in his experience a prophecy. The true 
Church at the close of this age, is, like Enoch, surrounded by 
scoffers, while the world itself rapidly nears the days of 
Noah, for violence is in the earth. But before the days of 
Noah return, as our Lord predicted in His prophecy, the 
true Church will be removed in a supernatural way, as Enoch 
was taken. May all those who believe in the Lord’s re- 
turn walk with God and bear witness to His coming to bring 
judgment upon the ungodly, as Enoch walked with God and 
witnessed for Him. 


CHAPTER VI 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD IN THE 
BOOK OF REVELATION 


The final book of the New Testament is the only prophetic 
book in the New Testament Scriptures. Its prophetic char- 
acter is indicated in the very beginning (Chapter i:3). We 
have learned that there is a prophetic element in every 
portion of the New Testament. ‘The Lord Jesus Christ 
exercised His office as the Prophet, when on earth, and 
predicted things to come concerning Jerusalem, His own 
nation, the Gentiles, the present age, and above all did He 
predict His return in power and glory to receive His own 
throne. The message of apostolic preaching included 
prophecy. Every one of the great doctrinal Epistles reveals 
prophetically the consummation and fullness of redemption, 
when Christ comes again. In this last Bible book given 
through the Apostle John, when a prisoner on the island of 
Patmos, we find the greatest New Testament unfolding of © 
the visible return of the Lord and the events connected 
with it. Not only what is revealed in the New Testament, 
but also Old Testament prophecies are restated once more 
in this majestic book which leads us from time into eternity. 
One of the reasons why the prophetic message of the Revel- 
ation has been so much misunderstood and misinterpreted 
is the ignorance of expositors as to the contents of the 
prophetic Word in the Old Testament and God’s revealed 
purposes. This great capstone of the entire revelation of 
God must forever remain a sealed book if the personal, 
visible and glorious return of Christ is not owned. It has 
been so much criticized and even ridiculed because that 
coming great event which will enthrone the Lord Jesus as 
King of kings and Lord of lords is not believed. 

94 


THE, RETURN: OF 'THE LORD 95 


The correct title is “‘the Revelation’; the name of the 
Apostle John should be omitted, though it was communicated 
through John, the book is not the revelation of St. John. 
As the opening verse tells us, it is the Revelation of Jesus 
Christ. The word revelation in the Greek ‘‘ Apocalypsis” 
means ‘‘Unveiling.”” We find in this book the unveiling of 
the Person and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. While on 
earth our Lord said “‘Search the Scriptures . . . they are 
they that testify of Me.” The final testimony to the Lord 
Jesus Christ is given in this book. Here we read of His 
Deity, His life and witness on earth, His sacrificial death, 
His resurrection and exaltation; but above all His glorious 
return is prominently made known. He is seen in the midst 
of the seven golden candlesticks; He sends messages from 
His throne to the churches. We behold Him as the Lamb 
in the midst of the throne; He is called the Lion of the tribe 
of Judah, who receives from God’s hands the seven sealed 
book. He breaks the seals, sends forth the trumpeting 
angels and the seven angels which pour out the vials of divine 
wrath. Again we see Him as the Angel of the covenant 
presenting before God the prayers of the Saints, and entitled 
to the possession of the land and the sea. John beheld Him 
sitting upon a white cloud crowned with a golden crown, 
and a sickle in His hand, and finally He appears riding upon 
the white horse followed by the armies of heaven to conquer 
the hostile forces and begin His glorious reign over the earth. 

The charge brought against this majestic book that it is 
disjointed and lacks an orderly construction is wholly un- 
founded. It is the opposite; all is arranged in perfect order. 
The first great prophetic message of this book concerns the 
Church on earth. The seven church messages give a start- 
ling prophetic forecast of the history of the Church on earth 
from Apostolic days till the true Churchis taken to glory 


96 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


and the apostate Church is disowned. This is found in the 
second and third chapters. Then follows the vision of the 
glorified church in the presence of the throne, after which 
we find the things which are coming upon the earth during 
the last seven years of tribulation with which the present 
age closes. When the end of those years comes He is revealed 
from heaven and His kingdom reign begins. Finally we 
behold in this book the issues of eternity. 

After these introductory remarks we turn to a closer exam- 
ination of the different passages in which His return is men- 
tioned. 

Chapter 1.4-8 “ John to the seven churches which are in Asia: 
Grace be to you, and peace, from Him who 1s, and who was, 
and who is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before 
His throne; and from Jesus Christ, who 1s the faithful witness, 
and the first begotten from the dead, and the prince of the kings 
of the earth. Unto Him who loveth us, and washed us from 
our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and 
priests unto God and His Father; to Him be glory and dominion 
for ever and ever, Amen. Behold, He cometh with clouds, and 
every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him; and 
all the tribes of the land shall wail because of Him. Even so, 
Amen. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, 
sath the Lord, who 1s and who was, and who 1s to come, the 
Almighty.” | 

These are the words of sublime greeting with which the 
Book begins. The Son of God is revealed here in His 
essential Deity and in His Incarnation. In His essential 
Deity He is the “I Am,” Jehovah, the self-existing One, 
who was, who is and who is to come. He is the Alpha and 
the Omega, the beginning and the ending, the Almighty. In 
incarnation we know Him as Jesus Christ. Of Him this 
text speaks in a threefold way. He is the faithful witness. 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 97 


Such He was on earth as He made God known to man and 
witnessed to the Truth. Then He is the first begotten from 
the dead, which indicates His death, the death of the cross. 
In the third place He is called “‘the prince of the kings of 
the earth”’; this is a title which He will receive in the future 
when He returns to earth and claims His crown rights over 
all the earth, purchased by His blood. 

Then follows an outburst of praise. It is not the worship- 
ful praise of John, but the praise of the Holy Spirit through 
the true Church. The Saints, those who know Christ, praise 
Him for His mighty love, because they know He died for 
their sins, has cleansed them by His blood and given them a 
place with Himself. The possession of this place awaits His 
return. He does not yet have the kingdom, nor does He 
reign as King; only when He reigns can His own reign with 
Him over the earth. The announcement of His coming with 
clouds is His appearing to the world. It is the same of which 
He spoke in Matthew xxiv:30, ‘“‘And then shall appear the 
sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and then shall all the tribes 
of the earth (land) mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man 
coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” 
The tribes are the tribes of Israel. Two other passages of 
Scripture throw light on this verse. In John xix:34-36 is the 
record of the pierced side; His legs were not broken. John 
informs us that these things, the piercing of His side and the 
unbroken legs, were done that the Scripture should be ful- 
filled. But while we read of the Scripture fulfilled that a 
bone of Him shall not be broken, John writes that another 
Scripture says “They shall look on Him whom they pierced.” 
It is still unfulfilled. That is why the word fulfilled is not 
used. This Scripture is found in Zech. xii:10. “And I will 
pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of 
Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and supplications, and they 


98 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall 
mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall 
be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for 
his firstborn.”? Those who pierced Him are His own people 
Israel, who rejected Him. ‘The context shows that this takes 
place “‘in that day,” that is the day of the Lord, when He 
appears visibly. Jerusalem will be in great trouble and dis- 
tress (Zech. xiv), but He will appear for their salvation and 
for the judgment of their enemies. The glorified body of the 
Lord Jesus Christ retains the nail prints and the mark of the 
pierced side (John xx:27; Luke xxiv:40). “Behold, He 
cometh with clouds,” is therefore His visible, second Coming, 
when all the remnant of Israel, will turn to Him and be 
saved by Him (Rom. xi:26). 

The seven messages, which the glorified Christ sent from 
the throne to seven churches in existence in Asia Minor at 
the close of the first century, contain the history of the entire 
Church on earth in a nutshell. The omniscient Lord knew 
from the beginning what the course of the professing church 
would be, beginning with the first declension in apostolic 
days down to the end of the age when apostasy would demand 
judgment. In the seven local assemblies He selected and 
addressed, He beheld certain, characteristics, which later 
would become the prominent features of the entire profess- 
ing church. To give a complete outline of the prophetic 
significance of these messages is not the purpose of this 
work. We have done so elsewhere.* We briefly state that 
the message to Ephesus gives the picture of the Church at 
the time the Apostles had ended their testimony (with the 
exception of John). Smyrna shows the Church during the 
dreadful persecutions under the different Roman emperors. 
Pergamos presents the Church being corrupted by identi- 





*Exposition of Revelation by A. C.G. 230 pp. 85 cents postpaid. 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 99 


fication with the world and by priestly assumption. Thyatira 
gives a prophetic picture of the Roman Catholic apostasy. 
Sardis is the Reformation period. Philadelphia and Laodicea 
describe the conditions of the professing Church apart from 
Rome, at the close of the age. Philadelphia is the faithful, 
loyal remnant, who keep His Word and deny not His Name. 
Laodicea is Modernism, the Protestant church in apostasy. 

In the first three messages the Lord does not mention 
His coming at all. But He speaks of His return in the four 
other messages. The first three periods are gone and will 
never appear again; the last four periods and phases remain 
till the Lord comes back. For this reason He does not speak 
of His return in the messages to Ephesus, Smyrna and Per- 
gamos, for He knew these periods would pass before His 
return. Not so with the last four; Roman Catholicism with 
all its evil doctrines, its superstitions and evil practises 
remains, till He comes. Sardis, the Reformation Churches, 
remain and when He comes He will find on earth an apostate 
church, which He disowns. 

To those faithful even in the Roman corruption He says: 
* But that which ye have hold fast till I come.”’ (Chapter ii:25.) 
Then He gives those overcomers a promise. “And he that 
overcometh, and keepeth My works unto the end, to him will 
I give power over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod 
of tron, as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers, 
even as I received of My Father. And I will give him the 
morning star.” ‘The noble men and women, thousands of 
them, who during Romish night held fast the truth of God 
and sealed their noble confession with their blood, after 
cruel tortures, have not yet received the promised power 
over the nations, nor do they, as disembodied spirits, rule 
with a rod of iron. The promise, yea all the promises, in 
the book of Revelation, will be made good when the Lord 


100 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


Jesus Christ returns.. If He does not come again to receive 
from the Father’s hands the nations for His inheritance all 
His promises made to the overcomers are failures, and those 
whose trusted in them trusted in vain. 

Chapter i11:3-5. “‘ Remember therefore how thou hast received 
and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not 
watch, I will come unto thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know 
what hour I will come upon thee. Thou hast a few names even 
in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall 
walk with Me in white, for they are worthy. He that over- 
cometh the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will 
not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess 
His name before My Father, and before His angels.” Sardis 
represents the Reformation period and the Churches of the 
Reformation. They will exist, like Roman Catholicism, till 
He comes. ‘The Lord calls on Protestantism to hold fast 
and to repent, exactly that which Protestantism is not doing 
today. What the glorified Christ says as to His coming as a 
thief will some day take place. It is not a coming in some 
other way, but His personal coming. The faithful ones who 
confess Him in the midst of Protestant failure and denial 
of the faith will He own before His Father and the angels. 
When will that be? Mark viii:38 tells us it will be at His 
coming. ‘The message to Philadelphia which follows brings 
into view the true Church, the faithful remnant, those who 
walk in separation and who own Christ alone. They are a 
feeble folk for He says, ‘Thou hast a little strength.” They 
keep His Word and do not deny His Name. The Lord of 
glory has given to them an open door, which no man can shut. 
We hear what He has to say to this faithful, loyal remnant 
of His people, who represent the assembly, His body in these 
days of the end of the age. 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 101 


Chapter 111 10-12. ‘‘ Because thou hast kept the word of my 
patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation 
(trial), which shall come upon all the world, to try them that 
dwell upon the earth. Behold I come quickly; hold that fast 
which thou hast, that no man take thy crown. Him that over- 
cometh will I make a pillar in the temple of My God, and he 
shall go no more out, and I will write upon him the name of 
My God, and the name of the city of My God, which is New 
Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from My God, 
and I will write upon him My new name.” 

Here is a gracious promise of exemption, which every true 
believer can claim. There is coming an hour of trial for all 
the world. What else can this mean but that coming time 
of tribulation with which the ages closes, and of which the 
Lord spoke while on earth (Matthew xxiv:21) and also His 
Apostles (2 Thess. ii)? Before that hour of trial arrives, 
not while it is in process, He will take His true Church to 
glory and 1 Thess. iv. 16-18 will be fulfilled. The believer 
who belongs to this remnant remembers daily His promise 
“T come quickly” and waits for Him. 

Laodicea runs parallel with Philadelphia. Laodicea is the 
professing church in apostasy; it is the Modernism of today. 
In this message He speaks as the coming judge. He threatens 
to spue the nauseating thing out of His mouth. He calls to 
repentance and speaks of Himself as standing at the door. 
From Laodicea there is no recovery. No new reformation 
takes place. No great revival restores things as they were 
in the beginning. Here we have a divine forecast of the end- 
history of the professing church on earth. While there is 
His true Church waiting for His coming, true to Him, holding 
fast the form of sound words, the great mass of professing 
Christians will depart from the faith once and for all delivered 


102 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


unto the Saints, so that when He comes He will not find the 
faith upon the earth, as He announced (Luke xviii:8). 

Chapter 1v:1-2. “‘ After this I looked, and, behold, a door was 
opened in heaven, and the first voice which I heard was as tt 
were of a trumpet talking with me, which said, Come up hither, 
and I will shew thee things which must be afterwards. And 
immediately I was in the spirit, and, behold, a throne was set 
in heaven, and one sat on the throne.” 

A great change suddenly takes place. John is transported 
in the spirit from earth to heaven. Earthly things are left 
behind and the unseen, heavenly things appear. Such a 
sudden change is in store for the true Church. It will take 
place when His gracious promise in John xiv:1-3 is fulfilled. 
In the preceding chapter we read of His promise “I will keep 
thee from the hour of trial,”’ and His threat “‘I will spue thee 
out of My mouth.” The opening words of the fourth chapter 
show the fulfillment of the promise and the threat as well. 
The true Church will be taken up to glory; the apostate 
church is seen completely rejected. 

Symbolically the words in the beginning of this chapter 
stand for that great revelation penned by the Apostle Paul 
in the First Epistle to the Thessalonians (iv:16-18). The 
open door is the symbol of the'entrance of the Saints into 
His presence. As it is written in Paul’s revelation, so here 
we read of a voice speaking and also the trumpet. The shout 
which will gather His Saints together to meet Him in the air 
will probably consist in the words which John heard, ““Come 
up hither.” As John was immediately in the spirit in the 
presence of the Lord, so we, when the Lord comes for His 
Saints, will be changed “‘in a moment, in the twinkling of 
an‘eye’’) {1 Cor: xvi52)- 

We find then here in the Revelation the definite infor- 
mation that before the tribulation with which this age 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 103 


closes, revealed in detail in Chapters vi-xix, can pass into 
history, the Lord will take His people to be with Himself. 
This is also indicated by the word ‘“‘afterward” ... the 
things which must be afterward. We are still living in the 
things “‘which are,” that is in the period of the Church on 
earth. The things afterward appear after the rapture of the 
Saints of God. All events in the book of Revelation after 
the third chapter are future. 

In the fourth and fifth chapters the redeemed are seen in 
glory as a glorified and worshipping company. An im- 
pressive scene takes place which is related to His return. 
In the beginning of the fifth chapter we read that God holds 
in His right hand a seven sealed book. It is found that the 
One who alone is worthy to receive the book, to break its 
seals, to make known its contents is “‘the Lion of the tribe 
of Judah, the Root of David.”’ The Lion appears at once in 
the midst of the redeemed as “‘a Lamb as it had been slain.” 
For the redeemed He is the Lamb of God. They heard on 
earth the message ‘‘Behold the Lamb of God!” They 
looked and lived. But He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah 
as well. He will manifest His Lion-character in royal 
judgments when He is about to return and in the day of 
His visible manifestation. ‘The book He receives contains 
the judgment actions of Almighty God, of which He is the 
executor, as well as the title deeds to the earth. ‘*The 
Father judges no man, but hath committed all judgment to 
the Son” (John v:22). When He came the first time He 
came for salvation. “For God sent not His Son into the 
world to condemn (judge) the world, but that the world 
through Him might be saved” (John i1i:17).. When He comes 
the second time He will judge the world in righteousness 
(Acts xvii:31). 


104 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


He receives the book and breaks the seals. When the 
sixth seal is broken the end of the age with His visible 
manifestation appears. 3 

Chapter vi:12 “ And I beheld when He had opened the sixth 
seal, and lo, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became 
black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; and 
the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth 
her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And 
the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together, and 
every mountain and island were moved out of their places. 
And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, 
and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, 
and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks 
of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on 
us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, 
and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of Hts 
wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?” (See Isaiah 
11:10-22; x111:9-11; Matthew xxiv:30-31.) 

The seal judgments are followed by the trumpet judgments 
and the vial judgments. In connection with the sounding 
of the seventh trumpet His glorious manifestation and 
victory is again mentioned. 

Chapter x1:15-17 “ And the seventh angel sounded, and there 
were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world 
are become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He 
shall reign for ever and ever. And the four and twenty elders, 
which sat before God on their thrones, fell upon their faces, and 
worshipped God, saying, We give Thee thanks, O Lord God 
Almighty, which art, which wast, and art to come, because 
Thou hast taken to Thee Thy great power, and hast reigned.” 
Not till these judgments are accomplished during the end of 
this age will the world be converted and the nations learn 
righteousness. ‘The kingdoms of this world can only become 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 105 


the kingdom of Christ at the time of His return. World 
conversion before the second coming of Christ is an unscrip- 
tural delusion. 

Chapter xiv: 14-16 “‘ And I looked, and behold a white cloud, 
and upon the cloud sat one like unto the Son of Man, having 
on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle. 
And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud 
voice to Him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in Thy sickle, and 
reap, for the time is come for Thee to reap, for the harvest of 
the earth is ripe. And He that sat on the cloud thrust in Hts 
sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped.” It is the time 
of the harvest, the end of the age, of which our Lord spoke 
in two of His parables (Matthew xiii). He is the great reaper, 
and He also uses the angels as we read in the verses which 
follow. 

Chapter xo: 3-4“ And they sing the song of Moses the servant 
of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous 
are Thy works, Lord God Almighty, just and true are Thy 
ways, Thou King of Saints. Who shall not fear Thee O Lord, 
and glorify Thy name? For Thou only art holy; for all 
nations shall come and worship before Thee, for Thy judgments 
are manifest.” ‘This is the song of the victors over the beast, 
the overcomers during the reign of Antichrist (Chapter 
xili), His victory, when all nations worship Him and all 
evil is dethroned. But that will not take place till His 
judgments are manifest in the earth (Isaiah xxvi:9) and His 
judgments are always linked with His return. 

Chapter xvt: 15 “ Behold I come as a thief. Blessed 1s he 
that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and 
they see his shame.” 

These are His own words. Chronologically in this book 
- they were spoken when the tribulation is nearing its end and 
all is preparing for the battle of that great day of God 


106 THE RETURN{OF THE LORD 


Almighty, the battle of Armageddon. The exhortation is 
addressed to the Jewish remnant, suffering during the tribu- 
lation, and waiting for His coming, when deliverance is in 
store for them. When the seventh angel pours out his vial 
into the air, the consummation is at hand, and the day of 
His visible manifestation . . . (verses 17-21). 

After a description of the mystical Babylon (Chapters 
XVii-xviii) and the judgment of it, the book introduces us 
once more to a heavenly scene. The voice of much people 
is heard, saying, Hallelujah! Salvation, and glory, and 
honour, and power, unto the Lord our God. All heaven is 
celebrating the overthrow of Babylon and the victory which 
is now at hand for the Son of Man. His reign is about to 
begin. ‘‘And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude 
and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty 
thunderings, saying, Hallelujah, for the Lord God reigneth. 
Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to Him, for the 
marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made her- 
self ready” (xix:1-7). The Bride of the Lamb, the Church, is 
now come to her glorious rights bestowed upon her by Him 
who loved the Church and gave Himself for it. Then all is 
ready for, not an opened door in the heavens, but for the 
opened heavens, and for the age-long expected manifestation 
of the returning Christ in great power and glory, to conquer 
with one mighty blow the opposing forces of evil, to dethrone 
Satan and to take His own throne to exercise the rule of 
righteousness and peace. 

Chapter xix:11-16 ‘‘ And I saw heaven opened, and behold, 
a white horse; and He that sat upon him was called Faithful 
and True, and in righteousness He doth judge and make war. 
Hts eyes were as a flame of fire, and on His head were many 
diadems, and He had a name written, that no man knew, but 


He Himself. And He was clothed in a vesture dipped in 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 107 
blood, and His name ts called the Word of God. And the 


armies which were in heaven followed Him upon white horses, 
clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of His mouth 
goeth a sharp sword, that with 1t He should smite the nations, 
and He shall rule them with a rod of iron, and He treadeth the 
wine press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And 
He hath on His vesture and on His thigh a name written, 
King of kings and Lord of lords.” 

The language is symbolical. The white horse typifies the 
victory of Him who sits upon the horse. He comes wearing 
many diadems. The brow which was once crowned in 
mockery with the cruel crown of thorns, wears now the 
diadems of kingly glories, such as were never seen upon 
earthly kings. His glory is told out in the names He bears. 
He has a name which is unknown, known only to Himself. 
It is the name of His essential Deity. His next name is 
“the Word of God.” It is the name which speaks of His 
incarnation, when He walked upon the earth among men. 
The third name is His name of the future. While He is 
constituted “‘ King of kings and Lord of lords” in the eternal 
purposes, and this title belongs to Him, He is not yet en- 
throned as King and Lord over all. Not in this dispensation 
but in the next, the dispensation of the fulness of times 
(Eph. i:10) will all things be put under His feet. That dis- 
pensation will be ushered in when heaven opens and He 
comes forth, as seen in this Patmos vision, as the mighty 
conqueror. He comes to overthrow the gathered nations 
under the leadership of the beast” (Chapter xiii:1-10). “And 
I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, 
gathered together to make war against Him that sat on the 
horse, and against His armies” (Verse 19). The day of 
Armageddon has come. The stone, which Nebuchadnezzar 
saw falling out of heaven, strikes, and the end of the times 


108 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


of the Gentiles has come (Daniel ii). He smites the nations 
in judgment. He gathers them as the kingly Judge, and as 
a shepherd divides the sheep from the goats so He will 
separate them (Matthew xxv:31-32). He is enthroned upon 
Zion’s hill and as long ago predicted in the second Psalm, 
He begins His rule with a rod of iron, the rule of righteousness, 
followed by the rod of peace, when all enemies have been 
subdued (Psalm cx:2). The armies of heaven which He 
brings with Himself are the redeemed hosts, as well as the 
holy angels. All He predicted while on earth as to His 
return will then literally be fulfilled. 

In the twentieth chapter we have His thousand-year 
reign revealed. It is the kingdom reign, when all things are 
put in subjection under His feet, when nations turn swords 
into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. Satan will 
be bound by Him (Genesis iii:15), the first great promise of 
the Bible, will then be fulfilled. ‘The head of the serpent is 
crushed. He can no longer deceive the nations. Christ 
reigns and the redeemed reign with Him over the earth. 
“Blessed and holy is he that hath part inthe first resurrection, 
on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be 
priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a 
thousand years.” During these thousand years every 
prophecy of blessing and glory in both Testaments will be 
literally fulfilled. Peace on earth and “glory to God in the 
highest” has now come. His own people have their rewards 
and what He promised for the time of regeneration has been 
realized (Matthew xix:28). 

We do not follow here the ending of the Kingdom reign of 
Christ. ‘The reader will find this explained in our complete 
exposition of Revelation, nor do we enlarge on the eternal 
issues as revealed in this book. We quote the remaining 
references to His return. 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 109 


Four times in the last chapter of Revelation, and therefore 
the last chapter of the whole Bible, His Return is mentioned. 
In doing so the Holy Spirit shows that with Him it is not the 
unessential doctrine, of no account and little consequence, 
as stated by so many theologians. 

Chapter xxii:7 “Behold, I come quickly. Blessed 1s he that 
keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book.” It is one of 
the last beatitudes of the Bible. Those who sneer at this 
book, and the thousands of indifferent Christians who never 
read this book or ponder over its wonderful revelations, have 
no share whatever in this blessing. But if a Christian 
believes in the personal and glorious return of the Lord, that 
Christian will read and study this greatest of all prophetic 
books, and keep the sayings of the prophecy of this book. 

Chapter xx11:12 “‘ Amd, behold, I come quickly; and my 
reward 15 with Me to give every man according as his work 
shall be.’ 'The previous passage in which the Lord announced 
His return and a promised blessing speaks of obedience; the 
second announcement of His coming is linked with the prom- 
ised reward. What He had spoken on earth (Matthew xxv: 
8-27) He repeats from glory. His coming brings the rewards 
for His servants (2 Tim. iv:8). 

Chapter xxi1:17 “‘ And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. 
And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst, 
come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” 

The preceding verse contains His own words. “I Jesus 
have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the 
churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, the 
bright and Morning Star.” This self-witness brings at once 
a response from the Holy Spirit. The Morning Star is the 
harbinger of the nearing dawn, with the rising Sun in all His 
glory. His visible return in great power and glory is spoken 
of in the last chapter of the last book of the Old Testament 


110 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


as “the Sun of Righteousness with healing in His wings’’ 
(Mal. iv:2). The Morning Star denotes His coming for His 
Saints. For this the Holy Spirit longs, when He can present 
the complete body of Christ, the assembly in His presence. 
Therefore He utters His “‘Come,”’ not here the invitation to 
the sinner, which follows directly, but the “Come” is address- 
ed to Him who is the root and offspring of David, the 
bright and Morning Star. The Bride is the assembly, the 
true Church. The Spirit dwells in her and she joins in and 
says “‘Come.” The Spirit and the Bride desire longingly 
His coming. But there is another “Come.” It is addressed 
to those who know Him not, who have no share and part in 
the coming glory, when His own are gathered home into the 
Father’s house. The last Gospel invitation, the last “‘ whoso- 
ever’ is given in this verse. 

Chapter xx11:20 “He which testifieth these things saith, 
Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, Come, Lord Jesus.” 
This is His last word. Once more He announces His coming. 
It will be suddenly. The next word which His own will 
hear from His lips is the shout (1 Thess. iv:16), the ‘Come 
up hither.”” The prayer ‘‘Even so, Come, Lord Jesus’’ is 
the answer of His waiting bride, the Church. For centuries 
it has been the forgotten prayer. But now it is prayed as 
never before. The prayer will be answered when He comes 
suddenly, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. May we 
never forget to pray this last prayer in the Bible. 


CHAPTER VII 


TWENTY PROMINENT FACTS TAUGHT IN THE NEW 
TESTAMENT ON THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


In our examination of the teaching in the New Testament 
on the return of the Lord Jesus Christ we have discovered 
the great prominence of this doctrine. The Lord Jesus 
Christ spoke frequently of His second coming. He announced 
it to His disciples. He gave them prophetically the program 
of the end of the age. He spoke of His return in different 
parables. He gave in His farewell discourse the promise of 
the blessed hope to His eleven followers, the Apostles. Even 
in the presence of His accusers He mentioned His return in 
the clouds of heaven. At His ascension the two heavenly 
visitors re-stated His return in like manner as He went up 
to heaven. We have learned that Peter preached it in his 
second address in the book of Acts, and that apostolic 
preaching and teaching did not neglect this great theme, it 
held an important place in their ministry and was the hope 
and comfort of the early Church. 

Furthermore the testimony of the great documents of 
Christianity, the Epistles, teach that His return is the goal 
of redemption. Some of the most vital doctrines of the 
faith are linked to this truth, that Christ will come back. 
We have seen that the resurrection of those who died in 
Christ, our re-union with them, the rewards for faithful 
service, the promised crowns and also the promised blessings 
for the earth are, besides much else, entirely dependent on 
His return. If there is no second coming of Christ the whole 
truth of Christianity breaks down. Then we learned from 
the last book of the Bible, the Apocalypse, the fitting cap- 
stone of the whole Word of God, the last word on His return. 

111 


112 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


Here the Old and New Testament revelations as to this event, 
what precedes and what follows His return, are all restated. 

And now we give facts taught in the New Testament about 
the Lord’s coming. 

1. The New Testament does not teach that the gift of the 
Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost 1s the second coming of 
Christ. This is one of the erroneous theories taught by 
commentators. They claim that when our Lord spoke of 
His return, that He meant the coming of the Holy Spirit. 
But such a teaching is unknown in the New Testament. 
The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. How 
then can the third person of the Godhead be the promised 
return of God the Son, the second person? 

2. Nor does the New Testament teach that the Destruction 
of Jerusalem 1s the promised return of Christ. ‘This view is 
also found in many commentaries. It is repeated by others, 
who, instead of searching the Scriptures search the com- 
ments of expositors of past generations. The destruction of 
Jerusalem was predicted by the Lord Jesus Christ. But 
nowhere does He say that He would come again at that time. 
As pointed out before Matthew xxiv:31 is the fatal blow to 
this view. Many commentators teach that verses 29 and 
30 mean His coming in the destruction of Jerusalem. But 
when Jerusalem was destroyed He did not send His angels 
to gather His elect, the people Israel, from the four winds. 
They were scattered into the four corners of the earth 
instead. 

3. Christ does not come again when the believer dies. This 
also is taught by many. When the Lord Jesus said to His 
disciples “‘I will come again and receive you unto myself,” 
they say, He meant the death of the disciples, when He 
would come to take them to Himself. But the death of the 
believer is never spoken of as the second coming of Christ. 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 113 


When the believer dies the Lord does not come for him, but 
the believer goes to be with the Lord. For this view there 
is not a line of Scripture in the entire New Testament. 

4, His return is a personal return. He said that He would 
go away. It was not a phantom departure, but He went in 
person. And he said “‘I will come again.”’ He did not mean 
a spiritual return, but a personal coming again. His words 
cannot be interpreted in any other way. Furthermore the 
two men in white apparel said to the disciples “‘‘This same 
Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come 
in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven” (Acts 
i:11). Wherever His return is mentioned in the New Testa- 
ment it means the return of the same One who lived on earth, 
who died on the cross, was buried, rose again and ascended 
up on high. 

5. It will be a visible return. His words “ They st shall see the 
Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven” (Matthew 
xxiv:30) teach His visible coming again beyond the shadow 
of a doubt. So does Rev. i:7, ‘‘Every eye shall see Him.” 
Scoffers sometimes say, How is this possible? But every eye 
on earth every twenty-four hours sees the sun in the heavens. 
Thus in that day when He descends in the cloud every eye 
will behold Him. 

6. His return will be in great power and glory. ‘And they 
shall see the Son of Man coming in great power and glory” 
(Mark xiii:26). The Epistles speak of His glorious appear- 
ing (Tit. ii:13; 2 Thess. i:9). This power and glory is 
prominently revealed in the Apocalypse. 

7. The Angels of God will accompany Him in H1s return, 
‘For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father 
with His angels” (Matthew xvi:27). “‘When the Lord Jesus 
shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels” 
(2 Thess. i:8). He will send forth the angels and use them as 


114 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


His messengers. These unseen tenants of the heavens will 
become visible in His return. 

8. He will bring all His Saints, the redeemed of both 
Testaments, with Him. (See 1 Thess. iv:14; Rev. xix:14.) It 
will be His glorification as well as the glorification of the 
Saints. ‘‘When He shall come to be glorified in His Saints, 
and to be admired in all them that believed, in that day 
(because our testimony among you was believed)” (2 Thess. 
i:10). 

9. His return will be suddenly, like the lightning and like 
a thief. The following passages teach this: Matthew xxiv:27; 
42-51; Mark xiii:35, 36; Rev. xvi:15; xxii:7; 12; 20. 

10. The present age remains unchanged till He returns. 
The New Testament teaches that not Christ, but Satan, is 
the god of this age and the prince of it. (2 Cor. iv:4; Eph. 
ii:2.) Satan is not dethroned till Christ comes again. (See 
Rev. xx:1-2.) Therefore this age remains an evil age down 
to its end. 

11. His return 1s preceded by the falling away. 'Throughout 
this age there has been going on a falling away from the truth. 
John wrote of the many antichrists in his day. (1 John ii.) 
The mystery of iniquity was then already at work (2 Thess. 
ii). When the end of the age comes (Matthew xiii) the 
harvest, the tares which began in the beginning of the age 
will be full grown. When He comes again He will not find “the 
faith on the earth” (Luke xviii:8); the days of Noah and Lot 
have returned, days of violence and lust (Luke xvii:26-37). 
The Epistles bear a startling testimony as to the final great 
apostasy, an apostasy which is apparent today, for the 
modernistic rationalism in the different evangelical denom- 
inations is the beginning of this falling away (See 2 Thess. ii; 
1 Tim. iv:1, 2; 2 Tim. iii:1-5; iv:1-4; Epistle of Jude; 2, Peter 
ii and iii). 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 115 


12. H1s return 1s preceded by the manifestation of the final, 
personal Antichrist, the man of sin and the son of perdition. 
The Lord announced the coming of such a one. He pre- 
dicted false Christs, with lying signs and wonders (Matthew 
xxiv:24, 25; John v:43; 2 Thess. ii; Revelation xiii). 

13. Hts return is preceded by the budding of the fig-tree and 
a final witness to the nations of the world (Matthew xxiv:14 
and 32, 33). There will be national revival among the Jews 
and the Lord will call a remnant from among them to herald 
the coming of the King, preaching the Gospel of the kingdom 
to all the nations of the world (see Rev. vii). The great 
multitude coming out of the great tribulation (Rev. vii:9-17) 
is not the Church, but the multitude represents those of the 
nations who believed this final witness, given by the 144,000 
Israelites, not Gentiles, who bear this final witness. 

14. His return 1s preceded by the great tribulation and 
followed by the gudgment of the nations. Nowhere is it pre- 
dicted that when Christ comes back He will find a converted 
world, that righteousness and peace will reign before His 
return. The Lord and His Apostles teach something entirely 
different. (See Matthew xxiv:21; Luke xxi:25, 26; Revelation 
in its main portion reveals the events of this time of greatest 
trouble. He returns at the close of the great tribulation, 
Matthew xxiv:29. He will come as judge after the tribu- 
lation. See Matthew xxv:31; 2 Thess. i: 8, 9). 

15. The New Testament reveals H1s coming as a blessed 
hope unknown 1n former ages. Whatever revelation the Lord 
Jesus Christ predicted as to His visible, personal and glor- 
ious return, preceded by the great tribulation and the 
manifestation of the Antichrist, is also revealed in the Old 
Testament. But in one passage He spoke of something new, 
altogether new, unknown to the prophets and to the Old 
Testament Saints. This is found in John xiv:1-4 It is the 


116 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


first intimation of the blessed hope for the Saints of the New 
Testament. 

It was given to the Apostle Paul to receive the full revel- 
ation concerning ‘“‘that blessed hope” (See again 1 Thess. 
iv:16-18 and 1 Cor. xv:51, 52). This blessed hope has 
rightly and scripturally been termed “‘the coming of the Lord 
for His Saints’’ in distinction from “‘the coming of the Lord 
with His Saints.”” The latter takes place when He is visibly 
revealed out of heaven. 

16. The coming of the Lord for His Saints takes place before 
the end of the age sets in, before the final great apostasy, before 
the great tribulation and before the mantfestation of the man of 
sin. The denial of this has led to much confusion. Good 
men teach, what is an unscriptural theory, that the Church 
will be on earth to the very end of the tribulation period. 
Some speak of the Church having yet to pass “‘through a 
Gethsemane experience.” But where is this taught in 
Scripture? Nowhere. ‘The second chapter of the second 
Epistle to the Thessalonians shows that the falling away and 
the man of sin, cannot come as long as there is the hindering 
One on the earth. As we have shown in the exegetical note 
on that chapter, that One is the Holy Spirit. He dwells in 
the true Church, as He dwells in every individual believer, 
and must be taken out of the way first. He will be taken 
away in hindering power with the rapture of the Saints. 

The reason why our Lord said nothing about tribulation 
to His disciples in the upper room when He first mentioned 
“that blessed hope,” is because the true Church has nothing 
whatever to do with that period of time. There is no tribu- 
lation of a punitive character in store for her, nor any wrath 
whatever (1 Thess. i:10). The suffering Saints during the 
great tribulation are Jews. In the Old Testament it is spoken 
of as “‘the time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jerem. xxx:7); and Daniel 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 117 


speaks of it in the same way (Dan. xii:1, 2). The scope of 
the Book of Revelation proves conclusively, that before even 
the Lord receives the book of judgments and tribulation from 
God’s hands, the Saints must first be brought to glory. Not 
one of the Epistles has anything to say about that great 
tribulation. There is a significant silence. It is because the 
true Church will not be here when that time comes. 

17. All true believers will be taken when the Lord comes. 
Some teach that only a certain class of believers will parti- 
cipate in the glorious rapture. According to some only those 
will meet the Lord who believe in His coming; holiness sects 
claim that one must have had a “‘deeper”’ experience to be fit 
for His coming. Others make ‘‘ Divine healing” the test, or 
the “gift of tongue” delusion, or something else. All these 
theories are not found in Scripture. Every child of God, 
no matter how ignorant, how weak in himself, how imperfect 
in walk and service, is nevertheless a child of God and as such 
belongs to the Father’s house. Every true believer, inde- 
pendent of his experience, whether ‘‘deep” or “‘shallow,” 
independent of his attainments, is through grace a member 
of the body of Christ, the Church. No member of that 
body will be left behind, when He comes for His Saints, 
for that body will be presented as a complete body 
in His presence. There is no such thing taught in the New 
Testament as a “‘piece-meal rapture,’ such as certain 
English and American Bible-teachers claim, to the confusion 
of simple and young believers. 

18. Hts coming for the Saints will mean a blessed re-union 
with our loved ones, who have gone before, and with all the 
Saints. It is therefore called ‘‘the comforting hope.”” Apart 
from the coming of the Lord for His Saints there is no ray 
of hope in Scripture of meeting our departed ones again. 
But when He comes for His Saints, those who died in Christ 


118 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


will be raised in incorruption; we, the living ones, will be 
changed. All will take place by the mighty power of God, 
in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. Together with 
them we shall be caught up in clouds to meet the Lord in the 
air. 

19. The New Testament teaches that there will be a judg- 
ment-seat of Christ. There the hidden things of our lives as 
to service, Christian living, Christian sacrifice and suffering, 
will be brought to light. Rewards and crowns will be 
bestowed upon those who were faithful. Others will be 
ashamed before Him in His presence and will be crownless, 
though saved as by fire. Then the Apostle Paul and all the 
Apostles and martyrs will receive their crowns in that day 
(2 Tim. iv:8). The blessed hope becomes therefore a great 
incentive to holy living and untiring, self-sacrificing service. 

20. With His coming the Church will be glorified and share 
with Him Hts glory and His kingdom. He will present the 
Church to Himself “fa glorious church, not having spot, or 
wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and 
without blemish” (Eph. v:27). Every individual believer 
will see Him as He is and will be like Him. Every believer 
will receive an eternal body, like unto His own glorious body. 
His prayer is answered ‘‘ Father, I will that those Thou hast 
given Me be with Me where I am, that they may behold 
My glory.” His glory will be our glory. With Him we shall 
be priests and kings, and reign with Him for a thousand years 
in His Kingdom over the earth. With Him the Church shall 
judge the world and shall judge Angels. 


CHAPTER VIII 


FIFTY PROPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
WHICH CAN ONLY BE FULFILLED WHEN 
THE LORD RETURNS 


There are hundreds of passages in the Old Testament 
prophetic Scriptures which are unfulfilled and which cannot 
be fulfilled till Christ returns. But when He comes back 
all these prophecies will be accomplished, and as a result the 
Bible as the inerrant, infallible Word of God will be vin- 
dicated. We quote only a small number of these prophecies 
as to the future, and indicate their coming fulfilment when 
the King returns to claim His Kingdom. We do not quote 
the texts in full as we do not want the reader to neglect his 
Bible in reading this volume. Please take your Bible and 
look up each passage. 

1. Numbers xxiv:17-25. The heathen prophet Balaam, 
forced to speak what the Spirit of God put into his mouth, 
in the presence of the heathen king of Moab, predicted that 
a Star should come out of Jacob and of a Sceptre to arise 
out of Israel. The Star and the Sceptre are predictions of 
Christ. His first coming is typified by the Star; His second 
coming by the Sceptre. The judgment of nations and the 
overthrow of the enemies of the people of God is announced 
by Balaam. It awaits His return to reign and rule over the 
earth. 

2. 1 Sam. 11:10. Hannah’s prophecy, uttered in her praise, 
looks forward to the time when He is King, when the 
Anointed (Christ) is exalted and when He will judge the ends 
of the earth. 

3. Psalm t1. In this Psalm the revolt against God and 
against His Christ is predicted. It has not yet come. Then, 

119 


120 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


when the nations of the world are opposing God and Christ, 
the King will be enthroned upon the hill of Zion and receive 
the nations of the world for His inheritance and the uttermost 
parts of the earth for His possession. 

4. Psalm otit. The Son of Man is the last Adam, the Lord 
Jesus Christ. All things will be put in subjection under His 
feet. But we see not yet all things put under Him (Hebr. ii). 
Only when He returns will this be done. 

5. Psalm xxit:27-31. There will be no turning of the ends 
of the world, nor will there be the worship of all nations, till 
Christ receives the Kingdom from the hands of God. He 
will be the Governor among the nations when He returns. 

6. Psalm xlvi:5-11. The preceding Psalm reveals the King 
coming to receive His throne. The results of His coming 
are given in this Psalm. The nations raged and the king- 
doms were moved. Judgment works are then executed by 
Him. Wars cease unto the end of the earth. The time of 
universal peace has come. It will not be till He returns. 

7. Psalm xlvoit and xloitt. Both of these Psalms are proph- 
ecies of the Kingdom to come. 

8. Psalm 1:3-6. The coming theophany described in this 
Psalm of Asaph is a prophetic picture of the Lord’s coming, 
when He will gather His Saints together and when the 
heavens shall declare His righteousness. 

9, Psalm lxxxix:27, The Firstborn, destined to be higher 
than the kings of the earth, is Christ. His return will exalt 
Him above all kings and rulers. 

10. Psalm ctt:13, 16. Mercy is promised to Zion, not the 
Church, but Israel. Zion in both Testaments never means 
the Church of Jesus Christ, but always the earthly literal 
Zion. The building of Zion, the restoration of Israel, will not 
take place till He appears in glory. 

11. Psalm cx:1-7. Only the first verse of this prophetic 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 121 


gem is fulfilled. He is still at the right hand of God waiting 
till it pleases God to send Him back to earth again. Then 
He will rule in the midst of His enemies, while Israel will be 
His willing people and the nations will be judged by Him in 
righteousness. 

12. Isaiah 11:2-4. 'This much quoted prophecy, in spite 
of all the well meaning efforts to legislate war out of the 
world, and have universal peace, will not be fulfilled till the 
Prince of Peace is on the throne. Then nations will learn 
war no more. 

13. Isaiah 11:10-22. This day of the Lord is future. It 
is the day of His visible and glorious appearing. 

14. Isaiah 1:2-6. 'This is another prophecy of that coming 
day of His return and of the glorious results which are in 
store for Israel. 

15. Isaiah ix:6-7. The child was born and the Son given, 
but the seventh verse remains to be fulfilled. He will receive 
the throne of David and with it the government, when He 
comes back. 

16. Isaiah x1:4-9, Here other results of His return are 
revealed. Groaning creation will be delivered, and the earth 
shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord. 

17. Isaiah xi:10-14. The restoration of Israel, the re- 
gathering of the nation from the ends of the earth and the 
islands of the sea has never taken place. His return will 
accomplish it (See Matthew xxv:31). 

18. Isaiah xi. This is a prophetic Song which converted 
and restored Israel will sing “in that day”? when “the Holy 
One of Israel,”’ Christ, is in their midst. 

19, Isaiah x111:9-11. 'This description of the coming day 
of the Lord is the same as spoken by Him in Matthew xxv: 
29, 30. 

20. Isaiah xxiv. The whole chapter and those which 


122 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


follow have been called “‘Isaiah’s little Apocalypse,” because 
the last book of the New Testament, the Revelation, or, 
Apocalypse, reveals much of what is contained in these 
chapters. The judgment announced comes in the day of the 
Lord. 

21. Isaiah xxv:9-12. This will be fulfilled when Israel’s 
waiting ends and He appears for their deliverance. 

22. Isatah xxv1:20-21. The godly remnant of Israel will 
be kept by the Lord during the days of the coming great 
tribulation, when judgments are poured out upon the 
ungodly. 

23. Isaiah xxvti:1. This is a prophecy of the future 
punishment of and complete victory over Satan (See Reve- 
lation xx:1). 

24. Isatah xxxit:1. 'The King promised to reign in right- 
eousness is the Lord Jesus Christ. 

25. Isaiah xxxii:13-20. The future outpouring of the 
Spirit will come with His return, when peace and blessing 
will be given to Israel. 

26. Isaiah xxxv. A prophetic picture of the coming 
kingdom. It necessitates the return of Christ and His 
personal presence in the midst of His people. 

27. Isaiah xl:5. The glory of the Lord is His visible glory. 
All flesh shall see it in that day. 

28. Isatah xlv:23. This is quoted in the second chapter 
of the Epistle to the Philippians. Only after His return 
will every knee bow before Him and every tongue confess 
Him. 

29, Isaiah xlix. ‘The entire chapter is prophetic, revealing 
Christ’s rejection by His own people, their ultimate salvation 
and the blessings of the kingdom, when He is revealed in 
His glorious majesty. 

30. Isaiah liv. These precious promises made to His 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 123 


afflicted, earthly people and predicting their future glory, 
and the glory of Jerusalem, will be fulfilled when He returns 
to earth. 

31. Isaiah lix:20, 21. This promise is quoted in the 
Epistle to the Romans xi:26. It is His second coming, and 
will result in the conversion and acceptance of the remnant 
of Israel living in that day. 

32. Isaiah lx: The future conversion of the world, following 
Israel’s conversion, is predicted in this chapter. World con- 
version in the Old Testament always follows the conversion 
and restoration of Israel, and these events are the results of 
the second, visible and glorious coming of Christ. 

33. Isatah lxi-lxv1. Each of these closing chapters of Isaiah 
reveals things tocome. ‘They cannot be fulfilled in any other 
way than by the return of the Lord. 

34. Jeremiah xx111:5-8. The reign of the King follows the 
return of the King, and the blessings promised here and in 
many other Scriptures will be bestowed upon Israel. 

35, Ezekiel xxxvi-xloiu. This entire section of the Prophet 
Ezekiel concerns the future. Nothing contained in these 
chapters has ever been fulfilled, nor can these prophecies 
be fulfilled before His return. 

36. Dantel 11; 44-45. 'The greater portion of Nebuchad- 
nezzar’s prophetic image has passed into history. ‘The smit- 
ing stone is future. It is the prophetic symbol of the second 
coming of Christ and the setting up of His kingdom on earth. 

37. Daniel vit:13-14. Of this the Lord spoke when on 
earth. ‘The vision shows Him in His return to receive 
dominion, glory and a kingdom. 

38. Daniel 1x:24-27. 'This greatest prophecy in Daniel has 
also been in greater part fulfilled. The last unfulfilled week 
is the end of the age, after the true Church has been super- 


124 THE RETURN OF THE LORD 


naturally removed from the earth. It remains to be fulfilled, 
and at the close of the seven years Christ returns. 

39. Daniel x1i;1-4. The predicted tribulation is the same 
as predicted by our Lord in Matthew xxiv. It precedes 
immediately His return, Matthew xxiv:29. 

40. Joel 11 and 111. ‘These events are closely linked with 
the day of the Lord, when He appears. Note Israel’s 
tribulation, repentance, restoration, spiritual blessings, the 
outpouring of the Spirit of God, the judgment of nations, are 
all future. 

41. Amos ix:11-15. This passage in part is quoted by 
James in Acts xv:13-17. The restoration of the house of 
David to kingly rule, the subsequent blessings for all the 
earth, follow His return. 

42. Habakkuk iti. This beautiful Ode is a prophecy of 
His second coming. What precedes His Return, the return 
itself and what is connected with it, are found in this chapter. 

43. Zephaniah 1. 'The description of the day of the Lord in 
its majesty, as given by Zephaniah is the same as revealed 
by Isaiah, Joel and other prophets. 

44, Haggai u:6,7. The time when heaven and earth will be 
shaken comes with His return. He is “the desire of all 
nations.” 

45. Zechariah 11:10-13. The joining of the many nations to 
the Lord is also future. Though the Gospel has been in 
the world for nineteen hundred years, there is no nation 
which is joined unto the Lord. The joining will take place 
“after the glory” (verse 8), that is, after the Lord has 
returned. 

46. Zechariah v111:6-8. The promised salvation of Israel, 
His people, from the East and the West, comes with His 
return. No such salvation for Israel is promised anywhere in 
Scripture apart from His visible return. 


THE RETURN OF THE LORD 125 


47. Zechariah 1x:9-11. While the Lord Jesus, when on 
earth, entered Jerusalem as predicted in this prophecy, 
another coming to Jerusalem is indicated. When that takes 
place, He will speak peace to the nations. His dominion 
shall be from sea to sea. It is at His Second Coming. 

48. Zechariah xi1:10. Israel’s conversion is foretold. It 
takes place when they look upon Him whom they pierced. 

49. Zechariah xiv. ‘The whole chapter is prophetic. The 
predicted siege in the beginning of this chapter has not yet 
taken place. As we find in other Scriptures, the nations will 
gather at the very end of the times of the Gentiles against 
Jerusalem (See Revel. xix:19). Then He will come forth 
and fight against those nations. His feet will stand upon 
the Mount of Olives in that day. He comes and all His 
Saints with Him. The rest of the chapter predicts the king- 
dom which always follows His return. 

50. Malachi 1v:1-3. ‘The last chapter in the Old Testa- 
ment predicts His Second Coming, just as the last chapter of 
the New Testament does the same. From all this we have 
learned that the Return of the Lord is a prominent, an out- 
standing doctrine of the entire Bible. The second coming is 
as prominently revealed as His first coming; both are of 
equal importance. If there were no second coming of 
Christ the whole scheme of redemption would break down. 
And His Return is the Hope, the one great Hope of all. 





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